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1914 was a year filled with much turmoil. War in Europe erupted and life in America was good. Several new commodities were created that helped make life easier and more pleasurable.

• Doublemint chewing gum is introduced by William Wrigley, Jr.
• World War I begins in Europe July 28 one month after the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in Bosnia. Riding in a motorcar at Sarajevo, the archduke Franz Ferdinand, 51, and his wife are killed by a high school student Gavrilo Prinzip, who has been hired by Serbian terrorists. The opposing sides are Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire and England, France, Belgium, Holland, Russia.
• The Panama Canal opens to traffic August 3 just as Germany declares war on France. It uses a system of locks to carry ships 50.7 miles between deep water in the Atlantic and deep water in the Pacific
• In October the Boston Braves win the World Series by defeating Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics 4 games to 0.
• A large Dodge Brothers factory goes up at Hamtramck, Mich., where Horace and John Dodge pioneer in making all-steel-bodied motorcars and achieve immediate success. The first car rolls off the assemby line in November.
• Yankee baseball Joe DiMaggio was born on November 25, 1914.
• Greyhound Bus has its beginnings by Swedish-American Carl Eric Wickman, 30, who had opened a Hupmobile and Goodyear Tire agency but was unable to sell the Hupmobile. He runs the car on a regular schedule across the range to nearby Alice charging iron miners 15¢ one way, 25¢ roundtrip, cheaper than local taxi services. Wickman takes in a partner, is soon building buses, and by 1918 will have 18 operating in northern Minnesota with annual earnings of $40,000.
• Naval Air Station at Pensacola is built in Florida.

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last updated 12/04/05