WordPress Permalink Stops Working

I recently migrated to a new Linux server with a different version of Apache, and for a while I could not get the WordPress permalinks to work. After a lot of trial and error, I figured out what the problem was, and I hope the information I share here will help someone in the future.

Below are the relevant system information:
OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Web Server: Apache 2.4.18

What was the initial symptom?

The home page of the blog loaded OK. However, when I clicked on any link to go into any post, category, or month, I got a 404 error.

For those of you who wants to know the answer right away without reading through my journey of getting there, go to the Fix section.

Things I tried

I tried a number of ways to resolve this issue. They were as follows:

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