Assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophia Ferdinand

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on the of 28 June 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip, was one of the key events that led to World War I. The assassin was a member of the “Black Hand Gang”, a secret Serbian nationalist armed militant force formed in May 1911 by officers in the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia. The Black Hand Gang slogan means “unification or death”. They had wanted Bosnia to be part of Serbia as a nation, but to their surprise the Austro-Hungarian empire took over Bosnia in 1908. Since that day the Serbia nationalists resisted the move and promised to defend their sovereignty if threatened by any foreign power. They perceived the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungarian state visit to Sarajevo in 1914 as a clue to seize the Serbia and add it up to the empire.