1916 Referendums

Events

Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix.

January

* January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled.
* January 9 – WWI: Gallipoli Campaign: The last British troops are evacuated from Gallipoli, as the Ottoman Empire prevails over a joint British and French operation to capture Constantinople.
* January 10 – WWI: Erzurum Offensive: Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire.
* January 12 – The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, part of the British Empire, is established in present-day Tuvalu and Kiribati.
* January 13 – WWI: Battle of Wadi: Ottoman Empire forces defeat the British, during the Mesopotamian campaign in modern-day Iraq.
* January 29 – WWI: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins.
* January 31 – WWI: An attack is planned on Verdun, France.

February

* February 9 – 6.00 p.m. – Tristan Tzara "founds" the art movement Dadaism (according to Hans Arp).
* February 11
** Emma Goldman is arrested, for lecturing on birth control in the United States.
** The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert in the United States.
** The Romanian football club Sportul Studențesc is founded in Bucharest.
* February 12 – WWI – Battle of Salaita Hill ( East African Campaign): South African and other British Empire troops fail to take a German East African defensive position.
* February 21 – WWI: The Battle of Verdun begins in France.

March

* March 8– 9 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads about 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers. A garrison of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.
* March 10 – The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence concludes with an understanding that the United Kingdom would recognise Arab independence in return for Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
* March 15 – United States President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.–Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa; the 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory.
* March 16 – Mexican Revolution: The U.S. 7th and 10th Cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the border, to join the hunt for Villa.
* March 22 – The temporary Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne, and the Republic of China is restored once again.
* March 24 – French ferry is torpedoed by in the English Channel, with at least 50 killed (including the composer Enrique Granados), resulting on May 4 in the ''Sussex'' Pledge by Germany to the United States, suspending its intensified submarine warfare policy.

April

* April
** The toggle light switch is invented, by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg.
** Korea Tungsten was founded in Daegu, as predecessor of leading steel product in Asia, POSCO (Pohang Steel Company).
* April 11 – WWI: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula.
* April 20 – The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (modern-day Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in 11 innings.
* April 22 – The Chinese troop transport capsizes off the Chinese coast; at least 1,000 are killed.
* April 24– 30 – The Easter Rising occurs in Ireland. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic, and the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin, before surrendering to the British Army.
* April 24–May 10 – Voyage of the ''James Caird'': An open boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean () is undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions, to obtain rescue for the main body of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, following the loss of its ship ''Endurance''.
* April 27 – WWI: Gas attack at Hulluch in France: The 47th Brigade, 16th (Irish) Division is decimated, in one of the most heavily concentrated German gas attacks of the war.
* April 29 – WWI: Mesopotamian campaign – The Siege of Kut ends with the surrender of British Indian Army forces to the Ottoman Empire at Kut-al-Amara on the Tigris in Basra Vilayet.

May

* May 16
** United States Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
** Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, which is to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, following the conclusion of WWI and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, into French and British spheres of influence.
* May 31– June 1 – WWI: Battle of Jutland, between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, the war's only large-scale clash of battleships. The result is tactically inconclusive, but British dominance of the North Sea is maintained.

June

* June 4 – WWI: The Brusilov Offensive, the height of Russian operations in the war, begins with their breaking through Austro-Hungarian lines.
* June 5 – WWI: sinks, having hit a mine off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard.
* June 10: The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, to create a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo to Aden, is formally declared by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.
* June 15 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.
* June 24 - Mary Pickford, becomes the first movie star to sign a million-dollar contract, making her one of the highest-paid people in the world.

July

* July 1– November 18 – WWI: Battle of the Somme, opening with explosion of the British Y Sap and Lochnagar mines and the Battle of Albert: More than one million soldiers die, with 57,470 British Empire casualties on the first day, 19,240 of them killed, the British Army's bloodiest day. The immediate result is tactically inconclusive.
* July 1– 12 – Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916: At least one shark attacks 5 swimmers along of New Jersey coastline, resulting in 4 deaths and the survival of one youth, who requires limb amputation. This event is the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write '' Jaws''.
* July 2 – WWI: Battle of Erzincan – Russian forces defeat troops of the Ottoman Empire in Armenia.
* July 15 – In Seattle, William Boeing incorporates ''Pacific Aero Products'' (later renamed '' Boeing'').
* July 15– 19 – WWI: Battle of Delville Wood – 766 men from the South African Brigade are killed, in South Africa's biggest loss during the First World War.
* July 19– 20 – WWI: Battle of Fromelles – An attack by Australian and British troops is repulsed by the German army, with heavy casualties.
* July 22 – Preparedness Day Bombing: In San Francisco, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40; Warren Billings and Tom Mooney are later wrongly convicted of it.
* July 26 – WWI: East African Campaign – The German armed ship SMS ''Graf von Goetzen'' scuttles herself on Lake Tanganyika.
* July 29 – Matheson Fire: In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson, killing 233.
* July 30 – German agents cause the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey

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