The war alluded to in the show is WWI, which, for all practical purposes, started with the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 28 July 1914 in Sarajevo (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and ended, for all practical purposes, with the armistice between warring countries on 11 November 1918. The U.S. avoided the conflict until President Woodrow Wilson's call for war against Germany and its allies on 2 April 1917 and Congress's declaration of war 6 April 1917.