Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by the Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. They were shot at close range while being driven through the provincial capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Austria-Hungary had formally annexed in 1908. Princip was one of six Bosnian assassins, coordinated by Danilo Ilic, nearly all of them Bosnian Serbs and members of the revolutionary movement later known as Young Bosnia. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis, which led Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia and was one of the key events that led to the outbreak of the First World War.