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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Happy birthday, Archduke Franz Ferdinand

It is the birthday of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863), whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 started World War I. Gavrilo Princip, 19, a Bosnian Serb, was convicted as the assassin. He was a Yugoslav nationalist associated with the Young Bosnia revolutionary movement bent on the unification of all Yugoslavs and freedom from Austria. Though his compatriots had been trying to kill the archduke, Princip's act was spur-of-the-moment, an opportunity presented by a sudden change in the archduke's itinerary and a momentary traffic jam across from a cafe where Princip was sitting.

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