1917

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• On 8 March (23 February by the old Russian calendar), the first Russian Revolution ('February Revolution') begins, with the tsar abdicating on 16 March. Meanwhile, in Finland, waiting to return to Russia, Lenin writes The State and Revolution, in which he outlines his ideas about the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. In July, there is a further, abortive uprising, but on 7 November (25 October by the old Russian calendar), the Bolsheviks led by Lenin finally succeed in overthrowing the parliamentary government and seizing power – the 'October Revolution'.

• In Mesopotamia (Iraq) on 11 March, British troops capture Baghdad from the Turks, and establish control over the country.

• On 6 April, the United States, led by President Woodrow Wilson, declares war on Germany and enters the war on the Allies' side.

• On the Western Front from 31 July to 10 November, the third battle of Ypres – also known as the battle of Passchendaele – results in heavy losses for very little gain.

• On 2 November, Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, writes to Lord Rothschild, a Zionist leader, pledging British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (This – the 'Balfour Declaration' – is confirmed at the Peace Conference of Versailles in 1919.)

• In New Orleans, the first jazz recording is made (by the all-white Original Dixieland Jazz Band).

• Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico begins the school of 'metaphysical painting', a precursor of surrealism.

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