President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in the official relations with GermanyFebruary 24: TheZimmermann Telegram is shown to the U.S. government.
January 11 – German saboteurs set off theKingsland explosion at Kingsland, New Jersey (modern-dayLyndhurst), one of the events leading to U.S. involvement inWorld War I.
An anti-prostitution drive inSan Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7,000 people, 20,000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asks if they will take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laugh derisively, which loses them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter.[1]
January 28 – The United States ends its search forPancho Villa.
January 30 –Pershing's troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States. They reachColumbus, New Mexico February 5.
February 3 –World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.
February 5
Congress and Senate override a veto by PresidentWoodrow Wilson to reinstate theImmigration Act of 1917, which allows more restrictions on immigration to the U.S., including the wholesale ban of people from much of Asia.[2]
February 24 –World War I: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the interceptedZimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.
December 1–31 – A severecold wave inInterior Alaska produces the coldest recorded mean monthly temperatures in the United States.Fort Yukon averages −48.3 °F or −44.6 °C andEagle −46 °F or −43.3 °C.[9]
December 6 –U.S. NavydestroyerUSS Jacob Jones is torpedoed and sunk in theAtlantic Ocean south west of the British Isles by German submarineU-53, killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war,[10] the first ever U.S. destroyer loss to an enemy.
December 26 – United States presidentWoodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to place most U.S.railroads under theUnited States Railroad Administration, with the aim of transporting troops and materials for the war effort more efficiently.
The calendar year is the coolest averaged over the contiguous United States in mean temperature (average of 50.06 °F or 10.03 °C against a long-term average of 51.86 °F or 11.03 °C)[11] and minimum temperature (37.62 °F or 3.12 °C against a long-term average of 39.84 °F or 4.36 °C).[12] it is also the second-driest with a coast-to-coast average precipitation of 25.35 inches or 643.9 millimetres against a long-term mean of 29.57 inches or 751.1 millimetres.[13]
^Cyrulik, John M. (2003).A Strategic Examination of the Punitive Expedition Into Mexico, 1916–1917. US Army Command and General Staff College. pp. 67–68.
^Baugess, James S.; DeBolt, Abbe Allen (2012).Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture Volume 1. Santa Barbara: Greenwood. p. 259.ISBN978-0-31332-945-6.
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