Causes of World War I corrective." British Diplomat Arthur Nicolson wrote in May 1914, “Since I have been at the Foreign Office I have not seen such calm waters.” On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead, by two gun shots in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins (five Serbs and one Bosniak) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. The assassination is significant because it was perceived by Austria-Hungary as an existential challenge
History of assassination 1912 presidential campaign. During the Lincoln Assassination, there were also attacks planned against current Vice-president Andrew Johnson and Secretary William H. Seward, but Johnson's did not go through, and Seward survived the attack. An assassination plot against Jefferson Davis, known as the Dahlgren Affair, may have been initiated during the American Civil War. In Europe the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, one of several Serb nationalist insurgents, triggered World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was visiting Bosnia-Herzegovina, since it was newly annexed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He had a route through the city streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia,