The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that shaped our modern world. The assassination of an Austrian duke on June 28, 1914, put the events in motion.
Gavrilo Princip, South Slav nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his consort, Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, at Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, giving Austria-Hungary an excuse to open hostilities against Serbia, precipitating World War I.