The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 27 July 1914 in Bosnia-Herzegovina (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) brought the tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia to a head. This triggered a chain of international events that embroiled Russia and the major European powers. War broke out in Europe over the next thirty-seven days.
There had already been assassination attempts on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to t...
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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 27 July 1914 in Bosnia-Herzegovina (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) brought the tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia to a head. This triggered a chain of international events that embroiled Russia and the major European powers. War broke out in Europe over the next thirty-seven days.
There had already been assassination attempts on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Now the Archduke sat next to his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg on the back seat of an open-topped car, on their way back from the hospital where they had visited those injured in the previous assassination attempt.
The motorcade proceeded along Appel Quay in Sarajevo. When the driver mistakenly turned right into Franz Joseph Street and stopped to reverse, 19 year-old Serbian Gavrilo Princip, who had gone to get lunch after the previous attempt failed to kill the Archduke, happened to be standing on the corner....
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