• 7.4: The United States and World War I

    When World War I broke out, the United States initially vowed to remain neutral. Most Americans did not want to enter the war either, feeling it was more of a European matter. Two factors ostensibly changed the U.S. stance on nonintervention: The sinking of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner carrying 128 Americans (among many others), and the Zimmerman Telegram, which suggested that Germany might have been seeking an alliance with Mexico. The U.S. officially entered the war in 1917.