which archduke was assassinated in sarajevo, considered the start of world war i?
Archduke Ferdinand assassinated. On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.