 
it began on a sunny june morning in 1914. 
a chauffeur-driven, open, touring car containing the archduke of 
austria-hungary and his wife was winding its way through the narrow streets of 
sarajevo, an obscure town in the little-known country of bosnia. 
the chauffeur, who had made a wrong turn onto francis joseph street, was 
preparing to turn around when a nineteen-year old youth moved toward the car 
with a pistol in his hand. 
he fired twice at the archduke and his wife. 
a spurt of blood shot from the archduke's mouth as his wife sophie cried, 
"for heaven's sake, what's happened to you? 
seconds later she collapsed into unconciousness from what the chauffeur 
thought was shock. 
the dying archduke somehow sensed that she, too, had been hit by the 
assassin's bullets. 
he cried out, "sophie dear, sophie dear, don"t die! 
stay alive for our children!" 
by 11 a.m. both the archduke and his wife were dead. 
so ended the drama of sarajevo. 
by evening shocked citizens around the world read in their newspapers of an 
assassinated archduke in a faraway place. 
few people thought that this event could have any effect upon their lives. 
few realized that the shot that killed the archduke was like a spark 
igniting a powder keg. 
the powder keg was europe and it exploded into world war i. 
world war i ended on a grey, november morning in 1918. 
at 11 a.m. the cease-fire order went into effect. 
for the first time in four years it was truly "all quiet on the western 
front." 
at war's end there was little to celebrate. 
what had begun as an adventure and novelty ended in a nightmare of chaos 
and human suffering. 
nearly 10,000,000 men and women had been killed in the four years of 
fighting and more than 6,000,000 had been crippled for life. 
