Government and Financial Leaders meet secretly at Jekyll Island, Georgia to plot a future reorganization and control of U.S. monetary policy.

Birth of future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, in Tampico, Illinois to parents of Irish and Scottish heritage.

“Progressive” Democrat, Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, a former college president and historian, elected President of the United States.

The 16^th Amendment to the Constitution allowing the Federal government the right to levy income taxes, the direct election of Senators amended to Constitution with the 17^th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve was created, all evidence of the triumph of “progressivist reforms” under Presidents Taft and Wilson.

Union and Confederate Civil War veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg, meet there for a 50^th Anniversary reunion and shake hands over the wall at the “high water mark.”

World War I erupted in Europe, the United States declared neutrality.

RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine. More than eleven hundred died, including 128 American citizens.

Woodrow Wilson reelected President on the slogan, “he kept us out of war.”

The United States officially entered World War I on the side of the England and France, raging in Europe since 1914.

The First World War ended with the Signing of the Treaty of Paris. The allied powers imposed large war reparations, restrictions, loss of colonies and territory on Germany. Ironically, Woodrow Wilson’s proposal of a League of Nations was agreed upon by the European Powers, but rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate.

The international influenza pandemic killed between 20 and 50 million people world-wide, including almost 700,000 Americans. No treatments or preventions proved effective.