Yesterday, June 28, marked the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, an event that would spark World War I.
The Defense Department has put together an excellent collection of time lines, maps, photos and videos of World War I, including some amazing, historic footage that captures rare moments of the First World War’s Aisne-Marne operation — below.
Read more about how a wrong turn resulted in the assassination of the archduke and Duchess Sophie– and eventually into the Great War — here, proving Otto von Bismarck’s 1888 prophecy of “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans” true
Lead image from “The War That Didn’t End All Wars” By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.