Real Assassins: How 3 Historical Assassinations Changed the World Real Assassins: How 3 Historical Assassinations Changed the World Posted on by Alekhine's Gun Assassin’s Creed largely concerns the lives of fictional assassins, but real assassins have played significant roles in the world’s history. Image Source: Flickr User jblivin Real assassins are where we get the stories of characters in our favorite video games like Ezio, Agent Alekhine , and Corvo Attano. The word “assassin” comes from a medieval order of Nizari Ismailis—a subset of Shia Islam—who formed their own army to oppose the Crusaders and were derogatorily referred to as hashashin, meaning “hashish users.” This group of real assassins served as the inspiration for the group Altaïr belonged to in the video game Assassin’s Creed. Not all historical assassins have noble vengeance as their motivation—many real assassins were killers hired to sway political opinion or eliminate threats, and assassination was an accepted fact of the Roman Republic as leaders stabbed one another in the back, sometimes literally.

The death of the right person can significantly change the course of the world, and these three real assassins have had some of the greatest impact on history. The real assassins behind Julius Caesar’s deaths were his friends, which he realized in the moments before his death. Image source: Wikimedia Commons Real Assassins Behind Julius Caesar’s Death Kickstarted the Fall of the Roman Republic What most people know about Julius Caesar’s assassination tends to be, “Et tu, Brute?” a line spoken by the famous Roman leader in Shakespeare’s play. While the quote itself is a fictional invention, the assassination was not. Caesar was betrayed and murdered by his friends, which explains why the famous quote shows Caesar’s familiarity with his killer, as well as surprise that he would be involved. After the death of the two other members in Rome’s ruling body, the Triumvirate, Caesar was given significantly more power. Some—including Caesar’s friend, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger—saw Caesar’s ruling as a threat to the future of the Republic and killed him. His death lead to the formation of the Second Triumvirate and subsequently to the formation of the Roman Empire by Augustus Caesar, which lasted well into the 1400s.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the target of two real assassins in one day, breaking the Austro-Hungarians tentative relations with the newly-annexed Balkan region. Image Source: Producer via Wikimedia Commons Archduke Franz Ferdinand Was Targeted by Two Assassins in One Day World War I can be confusing thanks to the involvement of so many broken alliances and invasions, but there is one incident historians point to as a catalyst for the conflict: the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Ferdinand was the prince of Hungary and Bohemia, and heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. As such, he was visiting Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had recently been annexed as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An attempted assassination was made on him earlier in the day, when a member of the revolutionary group Young Bosnia threw a grenade at the Archduke’s car but missed, injuring the occupants of a car behind them. On the way to visit the injured at the hospital, the Archduke’s vehicle had to turn around.

Seated at a nearby café, Gavrilo Princip, another member of Young Bosnia, saw his chance—he shot the Archduke and his wife, severing the tentative peace and kickstarting the events that led to World War I. While the assassination of one man may seem insignificant in comparison to the deaths of so many soldiers and civilians, the death of this one man was what led to the loss of so many others. The assassination of John F. Kennedy has spawned many conspiracies that leave people wondering who the real assassins are. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons JFK Assassination Spawns Conspiracy Theories About Real Assassins The assassination of John F. Kennedy is still a popular topic of conversation due to its conspiratorial connections . Though the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a US Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union, was the lone gunman involved in the shooting, these theories have persisted. Until his death, Oswald claimed that he was a scapegoat, only furthering these conspiracies. The most prominent theory of the real assassins behind JFK’s assassination is that Kennedy planned to withdraw 1,000 troops from Vietnam, easing the United States out of the conflict.

If, as the conspiracy theory claims, Kennedy had not been assassinated, steps would have been taken to de-escalate the conflict in Vietnam and withdraw US troops. What actually happened is much different: Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, escalated the conflict. Those who believe in a conspiracy behind the leader’s death say that government officials who believed in a more hawkish approach to the conflict orchestrated the whole thing to eliminate him—supporting Oswald’s claim that he was a patsy. Whether war could have been avoided entirely is a question that we’ll never be able to answer, but it’s undeniable that Kennedy’s assassination had a major effect on the country’s morale. The Dark History of Real Assassins Still Impacts Our World Real assassins have shaped history since early times, eliminating political and business threats for those in power. These three historical examples are just some of the most prominent—there are numerous other examples of assassinations throughout history, many of which have far-reaching consequences. As any fan of assassin games knows, the best assassins are the ones who don’t get caught, which leaves us to wonder which major deaths have actually been the work of nefarious killers.

Alekhine’s Gun , a stealth action video game from Maximum Games, follows Agent Alekhine—a trained KGB assassin turned CIA spy—from World War II to the JFK assassination, exploring a global conspiracy that threatens to shatter the world’s fragile peace. Now available for PC or console! 8 Most Famous Assassinations in History 8 Most Famous Assassinations in History By Tia Ghose, Staff Writer | November 21, 2013 10:52am ET MORE John F. Kennedy sits next to his wife, Jacqueline, in a limousine in Dallas shortly before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News; Public Domain Friday (Nov. 22) marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. That death stunned the world and caused an outpouring of public grief unprecedented in modern United States history. Some even say that the killing of the 35th president altered the course of history, and that the United States would not have become embroiled in the Vietnam War had he lived. But JFK isn't the only leader to have died by another's hands.

He joins a long list of leaders who were murdered for political reasons. From the stabbing of Julius Caesar to the shooting of Mahatma Gandhi, here are eight of the most famous assassinations in history. [ Which U.S. Leaders Have Been Assassinated? ] 1. Roman tragedy Et tu, Brute? Despite having lived more than 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar remains one of the most famous leaders to have met a brutal end. The "dictator in perpetuity" of the Roman Empire died on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. Senators Brutus and Cassius led a gang of senators called the Liberators and stabbed the leader to death outside the Theater of Pompey . Their motive? They feared Caesar planned to do away with the Senate and create a dictatorship. Of course, once they got Caesar out of the way, they set up a tyrannical government themselves. 2. Honest Abe Abraham Lincoln , hailed by many historians as America's greatest president, was at a high point in 1865 when he was murdered. He had ended slavery, preserved the Union through the Civil War, and was embarking on the long road to reconstruction.

The president was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when actor John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president's booth and shot him in the head on Good Friday, April 14, 1865. Booth then leapt onto the stage wielding a knife and said, "Sic semper tyrannis," or "thus always to tyrants," a famous line attributed to Brutus at Caesar's assassination. [ Busted: 6 Civil War Myths ] 3. Nonviolent leader Mohandas K. or "Mahatma" Gandhi led India's successful bid for independence from Great Britain from the 1920s to the 1940s. Instead of relying on a revolution, Gandhi used nonviolence to accomplish this feat. But on Jan. 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who opposed Gandhi's nonviolent approach and perceived favoritism towards Muslims, fired three shots at the leader at the Birla House in New Delhi, killing him. Millions of people came to honor the leader in his funeral procession. 4. Civil rights giant Martin Luther King Jr.

was the superstar of the civil rights movement and, like Gandhi, relied on nonviolence and civil disobedience to push for desegregation, voting rights and other civil rights for African Americans. Despite King's steadfast commitment to nonviolence, his opponents, mostly Southern whites opposed to desegregation and enfranchisement for African-Americans, weren't so restrained. White supremacists orchestrated bombings, beatings and murders to maintain the status quo, and King eventually became one of the victims. He was shot on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. Authorities convicted James Earl Ray, a racist petty criminal, for the assassination, but for decades, rumors have swirled that Ray was part of a government plot to kill King. 5. Ill-fated family The Kennedy family has been dogged by tragedy for many generations. On Nov. 22, 1963, a sniper shot and killed John F. Kennedy as he was traveling with a motorcade in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union but returned to the United States, acted alone and fired the shots from the sixth floor of a nearby book depository. Many believe the official story is wrong , and 50 years later, conspiracy theories continue to circulate. [ Why JFK Conspiracy Theories Won't Die ] Five years later, on June 5, 1968, JFK's younger brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for the presidency. He had just won the California presidential primary and was leaving the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, when Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian, opened fire and killed the presidential hopeful because of his support for Israel. 6. Music icon Though most assassinations are political, some killings seem to have little political rationale. John Lennon, one of the world's most famous musicians and a former member of the Beatles, was entering his home at The Dakota in New York City when he was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980. At his trial, Chapman initially planned to plead insanity but later changed his plea to guilty, saying it was the will of God. 7.

Young duke Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, wasn't exactly a well-loved personality, and was described by historians as suspicious, hysterical and unpopular. Still, he did accomplish one stunning feat: His death inadvertently launched the First World War . The duke was shot on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Yugoslav independence movement known as Young Bosnia and an assassin for The Black Hand, a secret society formed by members of the Serbian Army. Austria-Hungary believed the Serbian military was involved in the plot and issued an ultimatum, then invaded Serbia when part of the ultimatum was rejected. A tangle of political alliances then swept all the major world powers into the war, leading to millions of deaths. 8. Black power Malcolm X was one of the most galvanizing political figures of the 1950s and 1960s. He grew up an orphan and spent time in prison, where he became a member of the Nation of Islam. He soon began promoting its ideas. Unlike Dr.

King, Malcolm X rejected non-violence as a strategy and advocated for black separatism, saying African-Americans couldn't succeed in a racist society dominated by whites. But when Malcolm X fell out with the Nation of Islam leadership, he became a marked man. Three Nation of Islam members shot and killed the leader on Feb. 21, 1965, while he was giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Top 10 Secret Societies - Toptenz.net Toptenz.net Posted by Evan Andrews on March 3, 2010 in Bizarre , Politics , Religion | 94,377 Views | 88 Responses No matter what their supposed purpose, there’s something inherently sinister about a secret society. Though most are formed with relatively realistic political and religious goals in mind, their focus on mystery and secrecy has made them the target of countless criticisms and conspiracy theories involving everything from aliens and the occult to world domination. Of course, the reality is usually much more innocuous, but that doesn’t mean that the groups don’t have some fascinatingly weird practices, or that they haven’t had an impact on world events.

With this in mind, the following are ten of the most famous and influential secret societies in history. 10. Ordo Templi Orientis Famous Members Aleister Crowley Ordo Templi Orientis is a mystic organization that was started in the early twentieth century. The group was established along the same lines as the less secretive Freemasons, and supposedly relies on ritual and occult practices as a means for members to move from one level of prestige to another within the organization . The general philosophy of the group was a belief in new age esoteric principles and practices as a method of realizing one’s true identity. Famed occultist and all-around eccentric Aleister Crowley composed much of the group’s lore, including a manifesto called the Mysteria Mystica Maxima, and he later became its head. After his death, the influence and popularity of Ordo Templi Orientis began to wane, but it still exists today and has various chapters scattered across the world, chiefly in the United States, the U.K., and other parts of Europe. Secret Practices As Aleister Crowley’s popularity as a new age figure has continued to grow, more and more of the teachings of the Ordo Templi Orientis have come to light.

As such, the group makes much less of an attempt to be secretive today than it did in the past. This doesn’t mean that they don’t still have some bizarre practices. Chief among these is the group’s fixation on the sexual, especially their teachings on the “adoration of the phallus” and the magic of masturbation. 9. The Bilderberg Group Famous Members No members, but attendees have included Ben Bernanke, the royal families of Spain and the Netherlands, World Bank officials, and representatives from major corporations The Bilderberg Group is not a secret society per se, but it does operate under a similar veil of mystery, which has made it the subject of countless conspiracy theories and criticisms. The group was started in 1954, and since then it has convened every year as an exclusive, invitation-only conference of various world leaders, captains of industry, and media moguls. The group was originally started as a means of addressing a streak of anti-Americanism that was spreading through Europe following WWII, but over the years it appears to have morphed into a more broad discussion on reaching mutual understanding between cultures.

Secret Practices The Bilderberg Group has become controversial for one key reason: no press is allowed in the conference and no significant details concerning the topics discussed are ever officially released to the public. That kind of secrecy, along with the intense security of the meeting sites, which often feature armed guards, police, and even fighter jets patrolling the skies overhead, has produced a number of conspiracy theories centered on the conference. The most popular is that the group tries to steer the direction of public policy, financial markets, and media in certain prescribed directions of their choosing, perhaps even with the goal of forming a so-called “one world government.” These claims have been brushed aside by the group, which claims global understanding and the end of nuclear proliferation as its main goals. 8. Hashshashin– The Order of Assassins Famous Members None of note The Hashshashin, or Nizari, were a mysterious band of Muslim assassins that operated in the Middle East during the 13th century. The group was made up of Shia Muslims who broke off from a bigger sect and banded together in order to establish a utopian Shi’ite state.

Because their number was small, the group used guerilla tactics in their battle against their enemies, including espionage, sabotage, and, most famously, political assassination. The Hashshashin would plant highly trained moles inside enemy strongholds, with instructions to only attack when the time was right. They were known for their extreme discretion in minimizing civilian casualties, as well as their penchant for using stealth to intimidate their targets. As the story goes, enemy leaders would often wake in the morning to find a Hashshashin dagger lying on their pillow, along with a note saying “you are in our grip.” Their legend soon grew, and before the Mongols finally destroyed the group, they became well known contract killers, supposedly performing jobs for the likes of King Richard the Lionheart. Secret Practices Around the time of their downfall, the library that contained all Nizari records was destroyed, so much of what is known about them today has taken on the status of myth. The most controversial legend centers of the group’s use of drugs and other intoxicants– “Hashshashin” translates roughly as “Hashish user”–which some have said were employed by the members in battle.

This has been widely discredited, but the term “Hashshashin” as it refers to the Nizari is believed to be the origin of the modern word “assassin.” 7. The Black Hand Famous Members Gavrilo Princip (rumored) The Black Hand was a secret society of anti-imperialist political revolutionaries that was started in Serbia in 1912. It formed as an offshoot from Narodna Adbrona, a group that sought to unite all of the Slavic people of Europe under one country. This required the separation of Serbia from the monarchy of Austria -Hungary, which had annexed the country some years before. With this in mind, the group began disseminating anti-Austrian propaganda and training saboteurs and assassins to disrupt political rule within the province. Their plan was to incite a war between Serbia and Austria, which would give them a chance to free their country and unite the different Slavic nations as one. Secret Practices Black Hand would be all but forgotten today if not for their unlikely involvement in one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. In 1914, the group engineered the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The job was badly botched, and was only completed when a low-level hood named Gavrilo Princip stumbled upon the Archduke’s car and shot him to death at close range (see photo). Still, the results of the assassination were catastrophic. Within days, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, and after the allies of both countries joined the fray, the small dispute managed to escalate into WWI. The aftermath of WWI eventually led to WWII, and this led to the Cold War, which makes the Black Hand one of the most strangely influential forces of the twentieth century. 6. The Knights of the Golden Circle Famous Members John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James (above), Franklin Pierce (all rumored) The Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret society that flourished in the U.S. during the American Civil War . In the beginning, the group sought to encourage the annexation of Mexico and the West Indies, which they believed would help the waning slave trade to once again flourish. But once the Civil War started, the group switched its focus from colonialism to fervent support of the newly established Confederate government.

The Knights soon had thousands of followers, many of whom formed guerilla armies and began raiding Union strongholds in the West. In the Northern states, the mysterious order had an even bigger impact. Many newspapers and public figures engaged in witch-hunts where they accused supposed Southern sympathizers, including President Franklin Pierce, of being members of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Secret Practices Unlike most secret societies, the Golden Circle didn’t just concern itself with clandestine meetings and mysterious plans. Instead, the group often formed renegade armies and bands of bushwhackers in order to forward their agenda by force. In 1860, a group of the Knights made a failed attempt to invade Mexico. During the war, they robbed stagecoaches and attempted a blockade of the harbor in San Francisco, and a group of them even managed to briefly take control of southern New Mexico. 5. The Thule Society Famous Members Rudolf Hess, Arthur Rosenberg, Adolf Hitler (rumored) Lots of secret organizations are suspected of having malevolent ulterior motives, but the Thule Society is one of the few where such suspicions have been proven. The group was unofficially started in Germany just after the end of WWI.

It began as a kind of German heritage group that dabbled in the occult, but it quickly transformed into an organization that sought to forward the ideology of the Aryan race, and it took an outwardly racist approach toward Jews and other minorities. The group soon boasted over a thousand members, and even had its own propaganda newspaper. In 1919, members of the Thule Society formed a political organization called the German Workers’ Party. A young Adolf Hitler became a member, and eventually took over the party, which would later become known as the National Socialist German Workers’, or Nazi, party. Secret Practices Even before the Thule Society became a vehicle for Nazism, the members were involved in some pretty bizarre activities. The strangest was the group’s fascination with the Aryan race, whose origins they tried to trace back to the mythical land of Thule, which the Greeks had claimed was found north of Europe near Iceland and Greenland. 4. The Sons of Liberty Famous Members Paul Revere, John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock The Sons of Liberty is the name for a loosely organized group of dissidents that existed in America prior to the Revolutionary War.

The group did not exist as a secret society in the traditional sense; rather, it was made up of smaller factions of patriots from across the colonies that united in support of a common goal. When they did meet, it was usually in Boston around an elm tree that has since become known as the Liberty Tree. It was here that the group would formulate their resistance, which included the dissemination of pamphlets and even some sabotage and terrorist activity. This behavior led to the British branding the Sons of Liberty as seditious, and they were often referred to pejoratively as “The Sons of Violence.” The group is most notable today for sowing the seeds of revolution among the colonists with their protest of the Stamp Act, and for coining the now famous phrase “no taxation without representation.” Secret Practices The Sons of Liberty in Boston were the most famous arm of the group, but there were factions spread out all across the 13 colonies. One group in Rhode Island looted and burned the British trade ship Gaspee in protest of unfair trade practices, while others were known to tar and feather British loyalists.

Still, the most famous event engineered by the Sons remains the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when members of the group dressed as Indians and dumped shiploads of overtaxed tea into Boston Harbor. 3. Skull and Bones Famous Members George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John Kerry Ivy League Colleges are known for their many secret societies and student organizations, and of these Yale’s Skull and Bones is probably the most famous. The society taps new students for membership every spring, and the only real prerequisite for membership is that the initiate be a campus leader. As such, athletes, members of the student council, and fraternity presidents are often considered. Skull and Bones counts among its membership U.S. Presidents, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, which has lead many to argue that the group works as some kind of underground organization for the high-powered political elite. There is no denying that the club is well funded: an alumni organization called the Russell Trust Association bankrolls its activities, and the group supposedly owns an island in upstate New York. Secret Practices Skull and Bones’ membership is no longer kept secret, but their practices still are.

The order meets twice a week, but just what goes on at their meetings has never been revealed. To the disappointment of conspiracy theorists, what rumors have come out are relatively innocuous. The group has supposedly taken part in a number of pranks, and was once even sued by chairman of the Apache tribe, who claimed the Bonesmen were in possession of the skeleton of Geronimo. Beyond this, the group is known for allegedly forcing new members to relate their sexual history to the rest of the society, and for giving out nicknames to each initiate. In a widely reported rumor, President George H.W. Bush was supposedly known as “Magog,” a name given to the Bonesman with the most sexual experience. 2. The Illuminati Famous Members Goethe , Ferdinand of Brunswick, many others rumored In popular culture and the realm of wild and weird conspiracy theories, no secret organization has become as well known as the Illuminati, who have made frequent appearances in books, movies, and television. The group as it is popularly understood is more or less a myth, but the legend of it dates back to a real organization that existed in Germany in the late 1700s.

At the time, the members of the group presented themselves as an order of enlightened free thinkers. The press soon turned against them, and they came to be regarded by many as an underground force of dissidents intent on overthrowing the government, and they were even blamed for inciting the French Revolution. The group disbanded shortly thereafter, but their influence remained strong, and for years after their dissolution they were rumored to still be operating somewhere in the shadows. Secret Practices Thanks to its constant presence in popular culture, the Illuminati have continued to be feared to this day. Modern conspiracy theorists have asserted that the group survived and now operates as a sinister shadow government, directing world industry and politics as it sees fit. The Bush family, Winston Churchill, and President Barack Obama have all been named as prominent members, but no legitimate evidence of such a group has ever been uncovered. Still, the rumor lives on as one of the most popular, albeit bizarre, of all conspiracy theories. 1.

The Freemasons Famous Members Winston Churchill, Mark Twain , James Buchanan, Bob Dole, Henry Ford, Ben Franklin Although they are less influential and secretive today than they once were, the Freemasons remain one of the most famous fraternal organizations in the world, with a membership somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million. The group was officially founded in 1717, but documents relating to its existence date back to the 1300s. It was originally created to be a brotherhood whose members share certain key philosophical ideas, among them a belief in a supreme being. The group stresses moral uprightness, and as such many of the chapters have become known for their charitable work and community service. Despite these seemingly harmless practices, the Freemasons are not without their critics. Conspiracy theorists have long targeted them for supposedly being involved in nefarious occult practices, and there have even been whole political groups based around opposition to the group. Churches of all denominations have also criticized the organization, as its moral teachings and esoteric spiritual beliefs have been said to be in competition with more traditional religion. The Stonecutters, a secret society featured on the Simpsons is based on the Freemasons.

Secret Practices With its huge membership and different lodges scattered across the globe, modern Freemasonry no longer has the same universal principles as it did in the old days. One practice that has remained constant is the method for induction. Initiates must be recommended to the group by someone who is already a Mason, and once a member they must pass through three different degrees of standing before reaching the level of “Master Mason.” Members also have certain prescribed modes of greeting one another, including handshakes, gestures, and passwords, and non-masons are always banned from attending meetings. Top 10 Assassins - Listverse Top 10 Assassins Jimmy Burke August 22, 2007 This is a list of some of the more noteworthy assassinations in world history. I put some conditions on the list when I started: the assassin had to have committed a successful assassination, had to have some political or national significance, and had to have been more or less working alone. Number one doesn’t meet this final requirement, but it is too famous not to include. 10. John Wilkes Booth [ Wikipedia ] Assassinated American president Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Booth was an actor and Confederate sympathizer who conspired with several others to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. It was hoped that the death of Lincoln and his first two successors would cripple the Union government and allow the Confederate government, which had surrendered four days earlier, to continue the war. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. The others are James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Booth used a single-shot .44 caliber Deringer which he fired into the back of Lincoln’s head at point-blank range. Read the fascinating history of this dark skill in How to Kill: The Definitive History of the Assassin at Amazon.com! 9. Balthasar Gerard [ Wikipedia ] Killed Prince William I of Orange, Count of Nassau (also known as William the Silent) on July 10, 1584. William was prominent in the Dutch fight for independence from the Spanish crown in the Netherlands. He was directly involved (either financially or as a leader) in the battles that began the Eighty Years’ War.

Gerard, a Catholic Frenchman and supporter of Phillip II believed William had betrayed both the Spanish king and the Catholic religion. Gerard shot William in the chest at close range at William’s home in Delft. Many historians believe William of Orange to be the first world head of state to be assassinated through use of a handgun. 8. Gavrilo Princip [ Wikipedia ] Called “the shot heard round the world”, the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at the hands of Princip sparked the outbreak of World War I. The political goal of the killing was to splinter southern provinces from Austria to form a separate country (Greater Serbia or Yugoslavia). Anywhere from six to twenty-two (depending on which account you read) conspirators lined the route of Ferdinand’s motorcade armed with pistols and hand grenades. Despite one car in the motorcade being blown up, Ferdinand made it through unharmed. While trying to leave the city, Ferdinand’s driver apparently made a wrong turn and unknowingly drove into Princip’s line of fire. Princip fired into the car twice, striking and ultimately killing Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. Princip’s weapon of choice was a 7.65 x 17 mm Fabrique Nationale semi-automatic. 7.

Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik [ Wikipedia ] Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was the head of the German Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), or German secret police, during World War II. The more well known Gestapo was a division of the RSHA. On September 27, 1941, Heydrich was appointed military governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Morovia (Czechoslovakia). Heydrich’s brutality and cruelty to the Czech people and Jews in general earned him the nicknames Butcher of Prague, Blond Beast, and Hangman. Heydrich was so successful in the pacification of the Czech lands that Hitler considered making him governor of Paris. When British intelligence heard this, it was decided that Heydrich had to be eliminated at all costs. Thus was born Operation Anthropoid Kubis and Gabcik were Czechslovakian soldiers who had fled the country early in 1941. After being trained by the British they parachuted in near Prague and set up an ambush for Heydrich as he was driven to Prague Castle on May 27, 1942.

After Gabcik’s gun jammed, Kubis threw a modified anti-tank grenade at Heydrich’s car, spraying Heydrich with shrapnel from the seat of the car. Heydrich died eleven days later from septicemia, probably from horsehair used in the upholstery. This was the only successful Allied assassination of a leading Nazi figure during WWII. 6. Charlotte Corday [ Wikipedia ] Assassinated Jean-Paul Marat on July 13, 1793. Marat was a key figure in the French Revolution and was held up as a martyr for his cause following his death. He attained almost quasi-sainthood and busts of him actually replaced crucifixes in many churches in Paris. His support of the September Massacres and hand in starting The Reign of Terror tarnished his reputation and he was seen as something of a revolutionary monster in the Second Empire. For her part, Corday was generally reviled for murdering Marat, although during the Second Empire she was seen as a heroine of France. Marat suffered from an unknown skin disease (possibly dermatitis herpetiformis) from which the only relief he found was sitting in a cold bath.

He spent the last three years of his life conducting the majority of his business from his bathtub. After gaining entrance to see Marat (while in his bath) under the auspices of informing on a planned Girondist uprising, Corday stabbed Marat in the chest with a recently purchased dinner knife piercing his lung, aorta, and left ventricle. I included Corday on this list because of the historical importance of the French Revolution and because she was the only female assassin I found in my research. 5. Nathuram Godse [ Wikipedia ] Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Gandhi’s actual name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma is an Indian honorific similar to “Your Excellency”. Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, a Hindu nationalist organization opposed to the Muslim League and the secular Indian National Congress. The reason for the assassination is generally attributed to Gandhi’s support of the Partition of India and weakening of India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan. Godse believed Gandhi was sacrificing Hindu interests in an effort to appease minority groups, ie Muslims.

Godse killed Gandhi during his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla House in New Dehli. Godse approached Gandhi, bowed to him, then shot him three times at close range with a Beretta semi-automatic pistol. 4. Felix Yusupov [ Wikipedia ] Perhaps the most interesting, or bizarre at the very least, assassination in history. On December 16, 1916 a group of nobles lead by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich assassinated Grigori Rasputin. According to legend, Rasputin was poisoned, shot, clubbed, and ultimately thrown into an icy river where he finally succumbed to death. The conspirators, having decided that Rasputin’s influence over Tsaritsa Alexandra (wife of Tsar Nicholas II) was too dangerous a threat to the empire, first poisoned Rasputin with “enough cyanide to kill seven men”. When unaffected by the poison, Yusupov shot Rasputin in the back with a revolver. Yusupov then left the body to consult with the others.

When they returned to the body, Rasputin grabbed Yusupov by the throat and whispered, “You bad boy” into his ear before hurling him across the room and running out. As he ran out, he was shot three more times. The group followed him out and found him still struggling to carry on. They then clubbed him into submission, wrapped him in a sheet, and threw him into the Neva River. Three days later, the body was pulled from the river and autopsied. The cause of death was found to be hypothermia and his arms were found in an upright position as if he had tried to claw his way threw the ice. It should be noted that Rasputin had survived a previous attempt on his life. On June 14, 1914, Khionia Guseva stabbed Rasputin in the abdomen, and his entrails hung out in what seemed a mortal would. Rasputin recovered after intensive surgery and it was said of his survival that “the soul of this cursed muzhik was sown on his body.” 3.

Lee Harvey Oswald [ Wikipedia ] Perhaps the most debated and controversial of all assassinations is Oswald’s November 22, 1963 murder of American president John F. Kennedy. An avowed Marxist, Oswald was a former marine who emigrated to the Soviet Union in October of 1959. He later returned to the United States in 1962, finding life in the Soviet Union to be less than the idyllic existence he expected. After drifting through numerous jobs (and one failed assassination attempt upon General Edwin Walker), Oswald ended up in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where he killed Kennedy. Oswald shot Kennedy from a sixth floor window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository (where Oswald worked) as the president’s motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX. Oswald used a Mannlicher-Caracano rifle purchased via mail order earlier that year. I counted ten separate theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination, including KGB, CIA, and Mafia involvement, multiple gunmen, and imposters for both Oswald and Kennedy. Experience the harrowing 48 hours immediately after the Kennedy assassination with the riveting Lee Harvey Oswald: 48 Hours to Live at Amazon.com! 2.

Andrei Lugovoi [ Wikipedia ] Lugovoi is the man believed to have poisoned Alexander Valterovick Litvinenko with polonium-210 on November 1, 2006. This is notable because Litvinenko is the first known victim of induced acute radiation syndrome or radiation poisoning, the first “nuclear assassination”. Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned while having tea with Lugovoi and Dmitiri Kovtun. Litvinenko was a harsh critic of the Russian government and Russian president Vladimir Putin, and was currently investigating the death of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist known for her opposition to the Putin administration who was found murdered in 2006. 1. Marcus Julius Brutus [ Wikipedia ] In my opinion, the most famous assassination in history. Brutus, and as many as sixty or more men, stabbed Gaius Julius Caesar to death on March 15, 44 BC, the “Ides of March”. Caesar was the military dictator of Rome beginning about 50 BC, but his relationship with the Roman Senate was contentious, to say the least.

Brutus, a friend of Julius, but a Senator first conspired with other Senators to kill Caesar as they feared his growing power would make the Senate obsolete. Supposedly, Caesar’s last words as he lay dying on the steps of the Forum were, “Et tu, Brute?” which roughly translates as “You too, Brutus?” Notable Extras: Carlos the Jackal (not really an assassin, mostly did hijackings), Abu Nidal (terrorist), Guy Fawkes (failed attempt), and James Earl Ray (probably should be on the list, but I didn’t want to get too Americanized.) Contributor: Jimmy Burke Top 10 Secret Evil Societies | World Truth.TV Top 10 Secret Evil Societies Famous Members Aleister Crowley Ordo Templi Orientis is a mystic organization that was started in the early twentieth century. The group was established along the same lines as the less secretive Freemasons, and supposedly relies on ritual and occult practices as a means for members to move from one level of prestige to another within the organization. The general philosophy of the group was a belief in new age esoteric principles and practices as a method of realizing one’s true identity.

Famed occultist and all-around eccentric Aleister Crowley composed much of the group’s lore, including a manifesto called the Mysteria Mystica Maxima, and he later became its head. After his death, the influence and popularity of Ordo Templi Orientis began to wane, but it still exists today and has various chapters scattered across the world, chiefly in the United States, the U.K., and other parts of Europe. Secret Practices As Aleister Crowley’s popularity as a new age figure has continued to grow, more and more of the teachings of the Ordo Templi Orientis have come to light. As such, the group makes much less of an attempt to be secretive today than it did in the past. This doesn’t mean that they don’t still have some bizarre practices. Chief among these is the group’s fixation on the sexual, especially their teachings on the “adoration of the phallus” and the magic of masturbation. ———————————————————————————– 9.

The Bilderberg Group Famous Members No members, but attendees have included Ben Bernanke, the royal families of Spain and the Netherlands, World Bank officials, and representatives from major corporations The Bilderberg Group is not a secret society per se, but it does operate under a similar veil of mystery, which has made it the subject of countless conspiracy theories and criticisms. The group was started in 1954, and since then it has convened every year as an exclusive, invitation-only conference of various world leaders, captains of industry, and media moguls. The group was originally started as a means of addressing a streak of anti-Americanism that was spreading through Europe following WWII, but over the years it appears to have morphed into a more broad discussion on reaching mutual understanding between cultures. Secret Practices The Bilderberg Group has become controversial for one key reason: no press is allowed in the conference and no significant details concerning the topics discussed are ever officially released to the public. That kind of secrecy, along with the intense security of the meeting sites, which often feature armed guards, police, and even fighter jets patrolling the skies overhead, has produced a number of conspiracy theories centered on the conference.

The most popular is that the group tries to steer the direction of public policy, financial markets, and media in certain prescribed directions of their choosing, perhaps even with the goal of forming a so-called “one world government.” These claims have been brushed aside by the group, which claims global understanding and the end of nuclear proliferation as its main goals. ——————————————————————————————— 8. Hashshashin– The Order of Assassins Famous Members The Hashshashin, or Nizari, were a mysterious band of Muslim assassins that operated in the Middle East during the 13th century. The group was made up of Shia Muslims who broke off from a bigger sect and banded together in order to establish a utopian Shi’ite state. Because their number was small, the group used guerilla tactics in their battle against their enemies, including espionage, sabotage, and, most famously, political assassination. The Hashshashin would plant highly trained moles inside enemy strongholds, with instructions to only attack when the time was right. They were known for their extreme discretion in minimizing civilian casualties, as well as their penchant for using stealth to intimidate their targets.

As the story goes, enemy leaders would often wake in the morning to find a Hashshashin dagger lying on their pillow, along with a note saying “you are in our grip.” Their legend soon grew, and before the Mongols finally destroyed the group, they became well known contract killers, supposedly performing jobs for the likes of King Richard the Lionheart. Secret Practices Around the time of their downfall, the library that contained all Nizari records was destroyed, so much of what is known about them today has taken on the status of myth. The most controversial legend centers of the group’s use of drugs and other intoxicants– “Hashshashin” translates roughly as “Hashish user”–which some have said were employed by the members in battle. This has been widely discredited, but the term “Hashshashin” as it refers to the Nizari is believed to be the origin of the modern word “assassin.” —————————————————————————- Famous Members Gavrilo Princip (rumored) The Black Hand was a secret society of anti-imperialist political revolutionaries that was started in Serbia in 1912.

It formed as an offshoot from Narodna Adbrona, a group that sought to unite all of the Slavic people of Europe under one country. This required the separation of Serbia from the monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which had annexed the country some years before. With this in mind, the group began disseminating anti-Austrian propaganda and training saboteurs and assassins to disrupt political rule within the province. Their plan was to incite a war between Serbia and Austria, which would give them a chance to free their country and unite the different Slavic nations as one. Secret Practices Black Hand would be all but forgotten today if not for their unlikely involvement in one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. In 1914, the group engineered the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The job was badly botched, and was only completed when a low-level hood named Gavrilo Princip stumbled upon the Archduke’s car and shot him to death at close range (see photo). Still, the results of the assassination were catastrophic. Within days, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, and after the allies of both countries joined the fray, the small dispute managed to escalate into WWI.

The aftermath of WWI eventually led to WWII, and this led to the Cold War, which makes the Black Hand one of the most strangely influential forces of the twentieth century. ———————————————————————————– 6. The Knights of the Golden Circle Famous Members John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James (above), Franklin Pierce (all rumored) The Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret society that flourished in the U.S. during the American Civil War. In the beginning, the group sought to encourage the annexation of Mexico and the West Indies, which they believed would help the waning slave trade to once again flourish. But once the Civil War started, the group switched its focus from colonialism to fervent support of the newly established Confederate government. The Knights soon had thousands of followers, many of whom formed guerilla armies and began raiding Union strongholds in the West. In the Northern states, the mysterious order had an even bigger impact. Many newspapers and public figures engaged in witch-hunts where they accused supposed Southern sympathizers, including President Franklin Pierce, of being members of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Secret Practices Unlike most secret societies, the Golden Circle didn’t just concern itself with clandestine meetings and mysterious plans.

Instead, the group often formed renegade armies and bands of bushwhackers in order to forward their agenda by force. In 1860, a group of the Knights made a failed attempt to invade Mexico. During the war, they robbed stagecoaches and attempted a blockade of the harbor in San Francisco, and a group of them even managed to briefly take control of southern New Mexico. ———————————————————————————- Famous Members Rudolf Hess, Arthur Rosenberg, Adolf Hitler (rumored) Lots of secret organizations are suspected of having malevolent ulterior motives, but the Thule Society is one of the few where such suspicions have been proven. The group was unofficially started in Germany just after the end of WWI. It began as a kind of German heritage group that dabbled in the occult, but it quickly transformed into an organization that sought to forward the ideology of the Aryan race, and it took an outwardly racist approach toward Jews and other minorities. The group soon boasted over a thousand members, and even had its own propaganda newspaper. In 1919, members of the Thule Society formed a political organization called the German Workers’ Party.

A young Adolf Hitler became a member, and eventually took over the party, which would later become known as the National Socialist German Workers’, or Nazi, party. Secret Practices Even before the Thule Society became a vehicle for Nazism, the members were involved in some pretty bizarre activities. The strangest was the group’s fascination with the Aryan race, whose origins they tried to trace back to the mythical land of Thule, which the Greeks had claimed was found north of Europe near Iceland and Greenland. ————————————————————————————— 4. The Sons of Liberty Famous Members Paul Revere, John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock The Sons of Liberty is the name for a loosely organized group of dissidents that existed in America prior to the Revolutionary War. The group did not exist as a secret society in the traditional sense; rather, it was made up of smaller factions of patriots from across the colonies that united in support of a common goal. When they did meet, it was usually in Boston around an elm tree that has since become known as the Liberty Tree. It was here that the group would formulate their resistance, which included the dissemination of pamphlets and even some sabotage and terrorist activity.

This behavior led to the British branding the Sons of Liberty as seditious, and they were often referred to pejoratively as “The Sons of Violence.” The group is most notable today for sowing the seeds of revolution among the colonists with their protest of the Stamp Act, and for coining the now famous phrase “no taxation without representation.” Secret Practices The Sons of Liberty in Boston were the most famous arm of the group, but there were factions spread out all across the 13 colonies. One group in Rhode Island looted and burned the British trade ship Gaspee in protest of unfair trade practices, while others were known to tar and feather British loyalists. Still, the most famous event engineered by the Sons remains the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when members of the group dressed as Indians and dumped shiploads of overtaxed tea into Boston Harbor. ——————————————————————————- Famous Members George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John Kerry Ivy League Colleges are known for their many secret societies and student organizations, and of these Yale’s Skull and Bones is probably the most famous. The society taps new students for membership every spring, and the only real prerequisite for membership is that the initiate be a campus leader.

As such, athletes, members of the student council, and fraternity presidents are often considered. Skull and Bones counts among its membership U.S. Presidents, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, which has lead many to argue that the group works as some kind of underground organization for the high-powered political elite. There is no denying that the club is well funded: an alumni organization called the Russell Trust Association bankrolls its activities, and the group supposedly owns an island in upstate New York. Secret Practices Skull and Bones’ membership is no longer kept secret, but their practices still are. The order meets twice a week, but just what goes on at their meetings has never been revealed. To the disappointment of conspiracy theorists, what rumors have come out are relatively innocuous. The group has supposedly taken part in a number of pranks, and was once even sued by chairman of the Apache tribe, who claimed the Bonesmen were in possession of the skeleton of Geronimo. Beyond this, the group is known for allegedly forcing new members to relate their sexual history to the rest of the society, and for giving out nicknames to each initiate. In a widely reported rumor, President George H.W.

Bush was supposedly known as “Magog,” a name given to the Bonesman with the most sexual experience. ———————————————————————————— Famous Members Goethe, Ferdinand of Brunswick, many others rumored In popular culture and the realm of wild and weird conspiracy theories, no secret organization has become as well known as the Illuminati, who have made frequent appearances in books, movies, and television. The group as it is popularly understood is more or less a myth, but the legend of it dates back to a real organization that existed in Germany in the late 1700s. At the time, the members of the group presented themselves as an order of enlightened free thinkers. The press soon turned against them, and they came to be regarded by many as an underground force of dissidents intent on overthrowing the government, and they were even blamed for inciting the French Revolution. The group disbanded shortly thereafter, but their influence remained strong, and for years after their dissolution they were rumored to still be operating somewhere in the shadows. Secret Practices Thanks to its constant presence in popular culture, the Illuminati have continued to be feared to this day.

Modern conspiracy theorists have asserted that the group survived and now operates as a sinister shadow government, directing world industry and politics as it sees fit. The Bush family, Winston Churchill, and President Barack Obama have all been named as prominent members, but no legitimate evidence of such a group has ever been uncovered. Still, the rumor lives on as one of the most popular, albeit bizarre, of all conspiracy theories. ——————————————————————————– Famous Members Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, James Buchanan, Bob Dole, Henry Ford, Ben Franklin Although they are less influential and secretive today than they once were, the Freemasons remain one of the most famous fraternal organizations in the world, with a membership somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million. The group was officially founded in 1717, but documents relating to its existence date back to the 1300s. It was originally created to be a brotherhood whose members share certain key philosophical ideas, among them a belief in a supreme being. The group stresses moral uprightness, and as such many of the chapters have become known for their charitable work and community service. Despite these seemingly harmless practices, the Freemasons are not without their critics.

Conspiracy theorists have long targeted them for supposedly being involved in nefarious occult practices, and there have even been whole political groups based around opposition to the group. Churches of all denominations have also criticized the organization, as its moral teachings and esoteric spiritual beliefs have been said to be in competition with more traditional religion. From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 9961 Posts ) Eddie L. is the founder and owner of and Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. ▼ Primary Sources ▼ Assassination of Franz Ferdinand General Oskar Potiorek , Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina , invited Archduke Franz Ferdinand , Inspector of the Austro-Hungarian Army , and his wife, Sophie von Chotkova to, to watch his troops on maneuvers in June, 1914.

Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, knew that the visit would be dangerous. A large number of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina were unhappy with Austrian rule and favoured union with Serbia . Ferdinand was aware that in 1910 a Serb, Bogdan Zerajic, had attempted to assassinate General Varesanin, the Austrian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, when he was opening parliament in Sarajevo. Zerajic was a member of the Black Hand (Unity or Death) group who wanted Bosnia-Herzegovina to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The leader of the group was Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic , the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff. Dimitrijevic considered Franz Ferdinand a serious threat to a union between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia . He was worried that Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs would make an independent Serbian state more difficult to achieve. When it was announced that Franz Ferdinand was going to visit Bosnia in June 1914, Dimitrijevic began to make plans to assassinate him.

Dragutin Dimitrijevic , and his fellow conspirators, Milan Ciganovic and Major Voja Tankosic , sent three members of the Black Hand group based in Belgrade, Gavrilo Princip , Nedjelko Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez , to carry out the deed. Each man was given a revolver, two bombs and small vial of cyanide. The three men were instructed to commit suicide after Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been killed as it was important to Dimitrijevic that the men did not have the opportunity to confess that members of the Serbian Army were involved in the assassination. Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez were all suffering from tuberculosis and knew they would not live long. They all agreed they were willing to give their life for what they believed was a great cause: Bosnia-Herzegovina achieving independence from Austro-Hungary . Unknown to Dragutin Dimitrijevic , Major Voja Tankosic , was informing Nikola Pasic , the prime minister of Serbia about the plot. Although Pasic supported the main objectives of the Black Hand group, he did not want the assassination to take place as he feared it would lead to a war with Austro-Hungaria .

He therefore gave instructions for Gavrilo Princip , Nedjelko Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez to be arrested when they attempted to leave the country. However, his orders were not implemented and the three man arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina where they joined forces with fellow conspirators, Muhamed Mehmedbasic , Danilo Ilic , Vaso Cubrilovic , Cvijetko Popovic , Misko Jovanovic and Veljko Cubrilovic . Just before 10 o'clock on Sunday, 28th June, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Chotkova to arrived in Sarajevo by train. General Oskar Potiorek , Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina , was waiting to take the royal party to the City Hall for the official reception. In the front car was Fehim Curcic, the Mayor of Sarajevo and Dr. Gerde, the city's Commissioner of Police. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Chotkova to were in the second car with Oskar Potiorek and Count von Harrach.

The car's top was rolled back in order to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants. The local police force were in charge of the security arrangements for the royal visit. Before the arrival of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, thirty-five potential troublemakers were arrested and taken into custody. A hundred and twenty policemen were placed along the route that the royal party was to take on its way to the City Hall but it was decided that the 70,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers in Sarajevo were to be kept in their barracks. Unknown to the Sarajevo police force, seven members of the Black Hand group also lined the route. They were spaced out along the Appel Quay, each one had been instructed to try and kill Franz Ferdinand when the royal car reached his position. The first conspirator on the route to see the royal car was Muhamed Mehmedbasic . Standing by the Austro-Hungarian Bank, Mehmedbasic lost his nerve and allowed the car pass without taking action. Mehmedbasic later said that a policeman was standing behind him and feared he would be arrested before he had a chance to throw his bomb. The next man on the route was Nedjelko Cabrinovic .

At 10.15. Cabrinovic stepped forward and hurled his bomb at the archduke's car. The driver accelerated when he saw the object flying towards him and the bomb exploded under the wheel of the next car. Two of the occupants, Eric von Merizzi and Count Boos-Waldeck were seriously wounded. About a dozen spectators were also hit by bomb splinters. After throwing his bomb, Nedjelko Cabrinovic swallowed the cyanide he was carrying and jumped into the River Miljacka. Four men, including two detectives, followed him in and managed to arrest him. The poison failed to kill him and he was taken to the local police station. Franz Ferdinand's driver, Franz Urban, drove on extremely fast and other members of the Black Hand group on the route, Cvijetko Popovic , Gavrilo Princip , Danilo Ilic and Trifko Grabez , decided that it was useless to try and kill the archduke when the car was going at this speed. After attending the official reception at the City Hall, Franz Ferdinand asked about the members of his party that had been wounded by the bomb.

When the archduke was told they were badly injured in hospital, he insisted on being taken to see them. A member of the archduke's staff, Baron Morsey, suggested this might be dangerous, but Oskar Potiorek , who was responsible for the safety of the royal party, replied, "Do you think Sarajevo is full of assassins?" However, Potiorek did accept it would be better if Duchess Sophie remained behind in the City Hall. When Baron Morsey told Sophie about the revised plans, she refused to stay arguing: "As long as the Archduke shows himself in public today I will not leave him." In order to avoid the city centre, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the Sarajevo Hospital. However, Potiorek forgot to tell the driver, Franz Urban, about this decision. On the way to the hospital, Urban took a right turn into Franz Joseph Street. One of the conspirators, Gavrilo Princip , happened to be was standing on the corner at the time. Oskar Potiorek immediately realised the driver had taken the wrong route and shouted "What is this? This is the wrong way!

We're supposed to take the Appel Quay!". The driver put his foot on the brake, and began to back up. In doing so he moved slowly past the waiting Gavrilo Princip . The assassin stepped forward, drew his gun, and at a distance of about five feet, fired several times into the car. Franz Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophie von Chotkova to in the abdomen. Princip's bullet had pierced the archduke's jugular vein but before losing consciousness, he pleaded "Sophie dear! Sophie dear! Don't die! Stay alive for our children!" Franz Urban drove the royal couple to Konak, the governor's residence, but although both were still alive when they arrived, they died from their wounds soon afterwards. As instructed, after shooting Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Chotkova to, Gavrilo Princip turned his gun on himself. Ante Velic, who was standing behind him, saw what he was doing and seized Princip's right arm. Another man, Danilo Pusic, also grabbed Princip and within seconds the police arrived and he was arrested. Nedjelko Cabrinovi and Gavrilo Princip were both interrogated by the police.

They eventually gave the names of their fellow conspirators. Trifko Grabez , Danilo Ilic , Vaso Cubrilovic , Cvijetko Popovic , Misko Jovanovic and Veljko Cubrilovic were arrested but Muhamed Mehmedbasic managed to escape to Serbia . Several members of the Black Hand group interrogated by the Austrian authorities claimed that three men from Serbia, Milan Ciganovic , Dragutin Dimitrijevic and Major Voja Tankosic , had organised the plot. 0n 23rd July, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government demanded that the Serbian government arrested these three men and send them to face trial in Vienna. On 25th July, 1914, Nikola Pasic , the prime minister of Serbia , told the Austro-Hungarian government that he was unable to hand over these three men as it "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law". Three days later Austro-Hungarian declared war on Serbia . Eight of the men charged with treason and the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand were found guilty.

Under Austro-Hungarian law, capital punishment could not be imposed on someone who was under the age of twenty when they had committed the crime. Nedjelko Cabrinovic , Gavrilo Princip and Trifko Grabez therefore received the maximum penalty of twenty years. Vaso Cubrilovic got 16 years and Cvijetko Popovic 13 years. Misko Jovanovic , Danilo Ilic and Veljko Cubrilovic , who helped the assassins kill the royal couple, were executed on 3rd February, 1915. All three men sent by to Sarajevo from Serbia by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic , died in prison from tuberculosis: Nedjelko Cabrinovic (January, 1916), Trifko Grabez (February 1916) and Gavrilo Princip (April, 1918). During the first two years of the First World War the Serbian Army suffered a series of military defeats. Nikola Pasic , the prime minister of Serbia , angry about the way the war was destroying his country, disbanded the Black Hand organisation and Dragutin Dimitrijevic was arrested.

Dimitrijevic was found guilty of treason and executed on 11th June, 1917. Serbia, Sarajevo and the outbreak of the First World War | LSEE Blog Serbia, Sarajevo and the outbreak of the First World War Posted on June 30, 2014 by Blog Team The assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne, and, by accident, duchess Sophie, by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 triggered the First World War, the causes of which are deeply complex. Disagreements regarding the responsibility for and legacy of the war seem to have exacerbated in the centenary year, which provides an opportunity to revisit and contextualize the assassination. Words by Dejan Djokić. Postcard for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. (Source: Europeanna 1914-1918) BBC Breaking News style coverage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination is available here.

The 1878 occupation and then annexation in 1908 of Bosnia-Herzegovina – a South Slav Ottoman province – by Austria-Hungary was the main, though not the only reason for tensions between Serbia and the Habsburg Monarchy. Serbia’s efforts to escape Habsburg domination led to Vienna imposing a trade embargo on Belgrade in 1906. That same year a Croat-Serb Coalition won elections for the Croatian assembly, campaigning for the South Slavs’ self-determination. Serbia and Montenegro – the only two independent Slav states, Bulgaria and Russia aside – significantly increased their territory (including Kosovo) as a result of the 1912-13 Balkan Wars . Belgrade became a regional cultural centre, with leading South Slav intellectuals visiting or moving to Serbia’s capital. The Ottoman defeats against Italy and the Balkan states in 1911-13, which led to the loss of territory in Libya and south-eastern Europe, and an internal crisis caused by the Young Turks , did not go unnoticed. Approaching 1914, the Habsburg leadership perceived an increasing threat from its Slavs and from neighbouring Serbia.

This was the context in which the Austro-Hungarian military manoeuvres took place in Bosnia in June 1914. The potential risk to Franz Ferdinand was clear to senior members of the archduke’s entourage and local politicians who advised that the visit to Sarajevo on 28 June be postponed. The Kosovo Battle , fought on 28 June 1389 between Serbia and Ottoman Turkey, had become the symbol of the Serbs’ and Yugoslavs’ struggle for independence. Habsburg South Slavs visited Serbia and Montenegro to take part in the ‘Kosovo celebrations’ on 28 June 1914. When that day a choir sang the Croatian national anthem in central Belgrade, passers-by broke into a spontaneous applause. The mood changed somewhat when the news from Sarajevo arrived, the Serbian and Montenegrin governments ordering an immediate halt to festivities out of respect for the murdered archduke and duchess. * Princip was born in 1894, in a village in western Bosnia, as the sixth of nine children, and one of only three to survive infancy.

When his family sent him to continue secondary education in Sarajevo he would meet and soon join members of the nationalist youth. “Our shades shall roam Vienna, haunt the court, frighten the lords”, says this graffiti in Belgrade, depicting Gavrilo Princip. The assassins and their helpers came from Bosnia-Herzegovina; most were Serbs, but there were also Croats and Muslims. They belonged to Young Bosnia, a heterogeneous group united in belief that only radical action would lead to the liberation of the South Slavs and their unification with Serbia and Montenegro. Their interpretation of the past was romantic-nationalist; they lamented the loss of the medieval independence to Hungarians, Austrians and Turks. It was the history of medieval Serbia and its struggle against the Ottomans, symbolized by the Kosovo Battle, and the cult of Miloš Obilić , the alleged assassin of Sultan Murat, that resonated powerfully. As did the memory of Bogdan Žerajić, who in 1910 committed suicide after a failed assassination attempt on Bosnia’s Habsburg governor in Sarajevo . Four years later, and less than hundred meters away, Princip would assassinate Franz Ferdinand.

Young Bosnia should be understood in a transnational context of Italian, German, Polish, Irish and other contemporary European national movements. Princip cited Mazzini of the Young Italy during his trial, while Vladimir Gaćinović, a leading Young Bosnian, called himself a garibaldino, after Garibaldi’s volunteers who in 1875 joined an anti-Ottoman uprising in Herzegovina. They read and were inspired by Bakunin, Chernyshevsky, Kropotkin, Stepnyak, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Herzen, Dostoyevsky, William Morris, Conan Doyle, Schiller, Ibsen… Aspiring philosophers, poets and writers – Ivo Andrić, who in 1961 became the only Yugoslav Nobel prize-winning writer , had also been a Young Bosnian – they believed their goals were noble and means justified, and that Serbia would play the role of a Yugoslav Piedmont. * Belgrade immediately condemned and distanced itself from the assassins, treating the murder as an internal Austro-Hungarian matter, while promising to try any person found in Serbia who was involved in the assassination.

Business and trade between Serbia and Austria-Hungary continued, Serbia’s politicians campaigned before elections, while the army was recovering from the Balkan Wars and its chief-of-staff holidaying in Austria. Vienna blamed the assassination on Serb nationalism, for which Serbia was to be punished, even if the Belgrade government was not implicated in Franz Ferdinand’s murder. In early June prime minister Nikola Pašić acquired some knowledge of armed Bosnian students crossing the border, believed such ‘crossings ought to be prevented’…’for they are very dangerous for us’, and ordered an internal investigation. He did not know details of the plot, though he probably suspected Franz Ferdinand’s life could be in danger on such a symbolic day. An unofficial warning appears to have been delivered by the Serbian minister in Vienna, only to be allegedly ignored. Princip and his friends were aided by the ‘Unification or Death!’ (a.k.a. ‘Black Hand’), a nationalist Serbian organisation which believed that murdering tyrannical Habsburg rulers was justified. It was the Young Bosnians who asked for help and eventually lieutenant colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević-Apis and other Black Hand leaders agreed to assist them.

The 23 July ultimatum was deemed – not just by Serbs – as extremely harsh and designed to be rejected. Pašić personally carried the reply to the Austro-Hungarian legation, ‘a long envelope, with Serbia’s destiny sealed inside’, according to an eyewitness. It was carefully worded, conciliatory and accepted all but those demands deemed as violating Serbia’s sovereignty. The Habsburg minister stopped reading it upon realizing that not all demands were met, leaving Belgrade immediately, his luggage already packed. Written in French, Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia reached Niš , a town in Serbia where the government had evacuated in anticipation of an attack on Belgrade, around midday. The telegram was delivered to Evropa, a restaurant where Pašić was having lunch. Hours later Austro-Hungarian troops shelled Belgrade, marking the beginning of the Great War, in which all sides would suffer heavy casualties. The Austro-Hungarian government’s declaration of war in a telegram sent to the government of Serbia on 28 July 1914, signed by Imperial Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold. By late 1918 Austria-Hungary disintegrated.

South Slavs joined Serbia and Montenegro in what became Yugoslavia. Apis was sentenced to death for an alleged attempt at prince-regent Aleksandar’s life at a show trial staged in 1917 by the prince-regent, with Pašić’s support. In 1926 Aleksandar, now king of Yugoslavia, forced Pašić to resign as prime minister, just months before his death at the age of 81. Aleksandar was assassinated in 1934, when on a state visit to France, by a Macedonian revolutionary working with the Croatian Ustaša nationalists. Apis would be exonerated posthumously by Tito’s communist government in 1953, while Princip – who died in prison just months before the end of the war, his young age and Habsburg laws sparing his life in 1914 – and the Young Bosnians were celebrated in Tito’s Yugoslavia as national revolutionaries, even proto-communists. The Yugoslavs achieved independence in 1918, as the Young Bosnians had once dreamed, though the self rule did not mean an end to internal conflicts and external threats. But that is another story.

Question: Which assassin was the most famous member of the revolutionary group "Young Bosnia"?
Answer: Gavrilo Princip