Archduke Franz Ferdinand, pictured, was assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with his Serbian wife Sophie on June 28, 1914
In the event, which is widely accepted to have sparked the outbreak of World War One, Archduke Franz Ferdinand – the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire – was shot dead.
He was assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with his Serbian wife, Sophie, on June 28, 1914.
Eventually killed by 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, the couple had earlier that day been attacked by another man who threw a grenade at their car.
Archduke Ferdinand was shot in the neck, while his wife was hit in the abdomen. The assassination is believed to have started a domino effect which led to the break out of World War One a month later.
Princip and others wanted Bosnia to become part of Serbia. Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all.
As Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention–which would likely involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Britain as well.
On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War One had begun.
Artillery units of Austria-Hungary began to rain down shells on Belgrade, the Serbian capital – the very first shots of World War One.
That attack was to start a chain reaction that, within weeks, embroiled all of the world’s great powers into a global war which mobilised more than 70 million military personnel. The Great War – as it was soon to be known – was the first military conflict to be fought on an industrial scale.
But the technological advances that led to increases in the lethality of weapons were not matched by changes in strategy, with both sides resorting to practically suicidal human wave attacks.
Although much of the warfare took place in Europe, battle was soon joined across the planet via the colonies of the European imperial powers.
By 1918, the powers of Central Europe were exhausted by fighting. A final last-ditch offensive along the Western Front by Germany was successfully repelled and, as U.S. forces began to enter the trenches, the Allies staged a series of successful advances, forcing the enemy to surrender on November 11.