Who was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and why was he important? Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the nephew to the emperor, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and the Inspector General of the Army. His assassination was the event that sparked World War One. How did Archduke Franz Ferdinand die?
If you looked up Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a history book, what you'd be most likely to learn about is his death. That's because theassassinationof Ferdinand led to World War I. But there is more to Ferdinand than how he died. His life story is very interesting, too. In this lesso...
Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este, Austrian archduke whose assassination was the immediate cause of World War I. He and his wife, Sophie, were murdered by the Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and a month later Austri
Wanting to destroy Austro-Hungarian rule in the Balkans and to unite the South Slav peoples into a federal nation, he believed that the first step must be the assassination of a member of the Habsburg imperial family or a high official of the government. Having learned that Franz Ferdinand, ...