1914
Blacks make their first noteworthy appearance in films. Bert Williams stars in The Dark Town Jubilee and Sam Lucas plays Uncle Tom. Heretofore, blacks had been portrayed by whites in blackface.
1914
Giacomo della Chiesa becomes Pope Benedict XV, succeeding Pius X.
1914
Benito Mussolini, editor of the Milan Socialist party newspaper
Avanti!, is at first opposed to Italy's involvement in the war but soon
reverses his position and calls for Italy's entry on the side of the Allies.
Expelled from the Socialist party for this stance, he founds his own newspaper
in Milan, Il popolo d'Italia which will later become the party newspaper of the
Fascist movement. Mussolini will serve in the Italian army until wounded in
1917.
1914
Jean Monnet obtains a lucrative monopoly contract for the
shipment of vital war materials from Canada to France, making a fortune as a war
profiteer.
1914
Lazar Kaganovich moves to Kiev, takes a factory job and begins
to organize a Bolshevik union of sales employees. After several strikes, Lazar
is fired. He then finds work as a leather dresser across town and continues to
organize, though more cautiously.
1914
Guido von List publishes GLB 6 (Die Ursprache der
Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache) his so-called "masterpiece"
of occult linguistics and symbology. (Roots)
1914
Albert Einstein returns to Germany to occupy the most
prestigious and best-paying post a theoretical physicist can hold in central
Europe: professor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin, but does
not reapply for German citizenship. He is one of only a handful of German
professors who remained a pacifist and did not support Germany's war effort.
Although he held a cross-appointment at the University of Berlin, from this time
on, he will never again teach regular university courses, but remains on the
staff until 1933.
1914
The Panama Canal is completed, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
1914
U.S. Marines land at Veracruz, Mexico, and President Huerta resigns.
1914 January 11
A Germanenorden initiation ceremony held in
the Berlin Province features racial tests by Berlin phrenologist Robert
Burger-Villingren, inventor of the "plastometer," a device used for
determining the relative "Aryan purity" of a subject by measurement of
the skull. (Roots)
1914 January 12
Adolf Hitler is ordered to report for Austrian
military service.
1914 January 19
Hitler writes to the Austrian Consulate pleading for
leniency in regard to his failure to report for military service.
1914 February 5
Hitler is rejected by the Austrian army as unfit for
duty.
1914 February 9
Detlef Schmude, one of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfel's
earliest and most enthusiastic supporters in Germany, founds the second priory
of the Order of the New Templars (ONT) at Hollenberg near Kornelmünster. (Roots)
1914 May 20
A letter from Arthur Strauss to Julius Rüttinger
says that a Reichshammerbund group was founded in Munich that spring by
Wilhelm Rohmeder, chairman of the Deutscher Schulverein and a member of
the List Society since 1908. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)
1914 June
King Peter I of Serbia, in poor health, appoints his son,
Alexander as regent of Serbia.
1914 June 28
Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary is
assassinated at Sarajevo, capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia, by a
Serbian assassin, Gavrilo Princip. Princip had ties with both Britain and Russia.
1914 July
The Master of the Leipzig Geramanenorden lodge
politely proposes that Hermann Pohl retire from his office as head of the order.
(Roots)
1914 July 23
Austria-Hungary presents a warlike, 48-hour ultimatum
to the Serbian government, demanding a virtual protectorate over Serbia. Serbia
accepts all but one of the demands, but still its response is unsatisfactory to
Austria-Hungary.
1914 July 28
Austria-Hungary, refusing to submit the disputed terms to international arbitration, declares war on Serbia. All over Europe the armies soon begin preparing for war, and within a week most of Europe will be committed to one side or the other.
1914 July 29
Austrian forces invade Serbia and begin an artillery bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
1914 July 29
Russia mobilizes its troops near the Austrian border.
1914 July 31
The London Stock Exchange, at this time the most influential in the world, announces it is closing due to war. The U.S. follows suit and for several weeks all other important exchanges will also close. (Schlesinger I)
1914 August
General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general
staff, hampered by poor communications with his armies, overestimates the extent
of the initial German victory. Confident that the French armies are on the
brink of destruction, he detaches two corps from Kluck's army to the Eastern
front, where the Russians are threatening East Prussia.
1914 August
Alexander I becomes nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian army.
