Assassination at Sarajevo: The Spark That Started World War I (Snapshots in History)

On June 28, 1914, a 19-year-old Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip stepped up to an open car on a Sarajevo street and fired two shots. The bullets from Princip’s gun killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sophie. The gunfire also set the stage for the most disastrous armed conflict the world had yet experienced. Exactly one month after the assassination in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and World War I began.