In 1894, at a ball in Prague, Archduke Franz Ferdinand fell in love with a woman he met named Sophie Chotek. He was supposed to ascend to become emperor if his cousin could not do so, and Sophie was not of royal blood. They were allowed to marry in 1900, and only Ferdinand's mother attended. Sophie and Franz could never be in public together, they could never ride the same carriage, and she -nor their children- would ever be royalty, and were barred from royal courts. Despite shame and ridicule, the two stayed together, hopelessly in love. After years of struggling to be together without the restrictions of European regality, Ferdinand saw an opportunity in an invitation to watch Bosnian military maneuvers in the summer of 1914. You see, Ferdinand was a lieutenant, which meant if he accepted the invitation he would be acting as a military officer and NOT royalty. Since he wasn't royalty there, they could ride a car together, they could kiss and stay close in public. He accepted the invitation without hesitation. Sophie, fearing for Ferdinand's safety, decided to join him. On June 28, 1914, one hundred years from this day, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek were enjoying a rare quasi-honeymoon. At approximately 11 a.m. that same day, their car stopped at an intersection beside a sandwich shop. Gavrilo Princip shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife dead, the archduke's last words were "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!"
His death sent the world to war. World War I caused the death or displacement of nearly forty million people. But that is just the smallest scope of it all. His death caused World War I, which changed EVERYTHING. It sent the world into TWO MORE global conflicts that brought humanity as a whole to the brink of extinction: World War II and the Cold War. His death caused the war that made America a superpower, that gave us the economic boost to have the roaring twenties, the birth of modern jazz, the explosion of middle-class, cinema, and because of World War I, mechanization and Fordism quadrupled the profits of the automobile industry, which ensured it would be oil that prevailed over electric cars. His death caused the war that saw the introduction of aerial warfare, of submarine warfare, of chemical warfare, of modern biological warfare, and subsequently nuclear warfare. His death caused the war that forever changed art, literature, music, dance, poetry, and drama, a whole generation was "Lost", and Modernism, Post-Modernism, Futurism, Dadaism, Cubism, and all their followers were born from the world that lived through World War I. His death caused the war that changed Mexican export/import policies which created a profitable drug trade that birthed the cartel and the popular use of marijuana in North America, especially during and after Prohibition. His death caused the war that lead of dozens of revolutions throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. His death caused a shift to women in the workforce in America since men went off to war in Europe, which would set the grounds for women's suffrage in the United States. His death caused the war that lead to the Roaring Twenties and high use of credit which lead to the Great Depression which lead to introduction of Social Security and modern environmentalism. His death caused the war that changed modern psychology, as Sigmund Freud based most of his psychological observations on what he saw in World War I. His death caused the war that changed humanity completely and utterly, and the wars directly caused by World War I would put the death toll of his assassination in the hundreds of millions.
His death caused the war that forever shaped the way we lived our lives, the way we viewed the world and ourselves, and the very face of the earth itself. We forget every institution, every historical revolution, every war, every era is caused by and completely composed of human beings. We forget history is supposed to answer how we got here, not necessarily where we once were. History paints a picture of a 20th and 21st century that changed humanity at such an obscene rate, caused by a variety of factors but the most important among them are World War I, which exacerbated social, political, and industrial revolutions and movements. A domino effect like no other.
Because of one man's love, the world went to war, and never looked back.