ASSASSINATION!

On 28 June 1914, at approximately 1:15 pm, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were killed in Sarajevo, by Gavrillo Princip who was only 19 at the time and a member of Young Bosnia and he was one of a group of assassins organized by The Black Hand. The event, known as the Assassination in Sarajevo, led to a chain of events that eventually triggered the first world war. Ferdinand and Sophie had previously been attacked when a grenade was thrown at their car, Ferdinand deflected the grenade and it detonated far behind them. The royal couple insisted on seeing all those injured at the hospital. After traveling there, Franz and Sophie decided to go to the palace, but Franz Ferdinand's car took a wrong turn onto a side street where Princip spotted them. As their car was backing up, Princip approached and shot both Sophie, striking her in the abdomen, and Franz, who was struck in the jugular and was still alive when witnesses arrived to help. His last words to Sophie were 'Don't die darling, think of the children.' Princip had used a pocket-sized pistol. The archduke's aides attempted to undo his coat when they realized they needed scissors to cut the coat open, but it was too late; he died within minutes. Sophie also died while on route to the hospital. The assassinations contributed to the beginning of World War I, which began less than two months after Franz Ferdinand's death, with Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia