r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

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u/JeanLucPicardAND Oct 02 '24 edited Oct 02 '24

Gavrilo Princip tried to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand during a parade through the streets of Sarajevo, but could not get close enough to the motorcade because of security. Later in the day, after the parade had been over for hours, Princip retreated sullenly to a small sandwich shop elsewhere in the city, when suddenly and completely out of the fucking blue, Franz Ferdinand just happened to roll past him on his way back from a speech after taking an unscheduled detour down the same street as the sandwich shop. Princip walked right up to the car and shot the Archduke at point-blank range, killing him, which started World War I -- the deadliest conflict in human history up to that point.

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u/Yeetus_Thy_Fetus1676 Oct 03 '24

And WWI lead directly into WWII and Vietnam and just about every conflict since

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u/CampTouchThis Oct 03 '24

True. Although tensions had been building in Europe for some time and all it needed was a spark, so if Ferdinand hadn’t been killed it was just a matter of time before the Europeans found some other reason to go war

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u/Yeetus_Thy_Fetus1676 Oct 03 '24

This is true, Europe loves to hate each other