Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife on the day they were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, 1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife on the day they were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife on the day they were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. This assassination is often cited as one of the major precursors that led to World War I. In an event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914. These assassinations were a spark to the start of World War I, Europe had been boiling for a few years already and was just waiting for a reason to start a war. His last words after being shot in the neck were to his wife, who was hit in the stomach by a stray second shot. They were: “Sophie! Sophie! Don’t die! Live for our children!“. He was asked about his condition on the way to the hospital and kept saying “It’...