In Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, a young Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip fired a shot which would become the deadliest in history. With the help of co-conspirators from underground nationalist group Young Bosnia, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie during their imperial visit to the capital. Their deaths set off a domino effect of ultimatums, alliances, and mobilisations across Europe, and within weeks, the continent was engulfed in World War I (The Great War), a conflict that ultimately claimed millions of lives. Was Princip a terrorist, a freedom fighter, or simply a desperate youth caught in history’s tide? This episode explores the life, motives, and legacy of the 19-year-old whose pistol transformed Bosnia’s struggle into a global war. Few individuals have altered the course of history so suddenly, or so tragically.

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Sources:
Dedijer, Vladimir. The Road to Sarajevo. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1966.

Butcher, Tim. The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War. London: Chatto & Windus, 2014.

Feuerlicht, Roberta Strauss. The Desperate Act: The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. London: McGraw-Hill, 1968.

Additional references:
Aichelburg, Wladimir. Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand und Artstetten. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, 1986.

Woolf, Alex. Assassination in Sarajevo. Oxford: Heinemann, 2002.

Ullman, Harlan. A Handful of Bullets: How the Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Still Menaces the Peace. New York: Potomac Books, 2014.

Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel. World War I: The “Great War”

Culpin, Christopher. Making History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996