Fernley ceremony commemorates 100th anniversary of U.S. involvement in WWI

FERNLEY — Thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe, “The Great War” killed twice as many people from a wide-reaching influenza pandemic than those who perished in combat during World War II. World War I, though, began in August 1914 because of deep political differences throughout Europe — not disease — when a Yugoslav national assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austria-Hungary empire on June 28.