On This Day (June 28)

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In 1914, Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife during a motorcade in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of World War I.

During the 19th century, complex political and military alliances maintained a tenuous peace throughout Europe. In the late 1800s however, new treaties were signed between Germany, Austria and Italy on the one hand and England, France and Russia on the other as military build up occured on both sides. In the early 1900s, annexations by Austria-Hungry in the Balkans angered Russia and Serbia. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was merely the spark which ignited the "powder keg of Europe".

The after effects of the war were severe. Four empires, the German, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman, as well as four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs and the Ottomans, disappeared. Eight million soldiers were killed, seven million were permanently disabled and fifteen million were serously injured. An estimated 50 million people died of the Spanish Flu.

The war set the stage for the Russian revolution and the rise of Bolshevikism and eventually communism in that country. Economic reprisals against Germany-Austria enabled the Nazis to come to power in Germany and eventually resulted in World War II. The establishment of the state of Isreal in the Middle East remains a source of great conflict in that region.

Reference: Wikipedia