The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the drumbeats of war
![](http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2014-06-27/Reuters/2014-06-27T165028Z_01_DAD101_RTRIDSP_3_WWI-ANNIVERSARY-BOSNIA.jpg)
One hundred years ago today in Sarajevo, a Serb nationalist shot to death at point-blank range the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie. Their deaths, we are told, triggered the chain of events that led a month later to the start of World War I -- the Great War, a horrifying, bloody four-year conflict that killed some 14 million people, collapsed empires and redrew large parts of the world's map.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...mbeats-of-war/