Shot heard round the world The phrase "shot heard round the world" (alternatively "shots heard round the world" or "shot heard around the world") has also become associated with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, an event considered to be one of the immediate causes of World War I. Serbian Gavrilo Princip fired two shots, the first hitting Franz Ferdinand's wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, and the second hitting the Archduke himself. The death of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, propelled Austria-Hungary and the rest of Europe into World War I. The phrase "Shot heard
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand wife planned to visit Sarajevo to open the state museum in its new premises there. Duchess Sophie, according to their eldest son, Duke Maximilian, accompanied her husband out of fear for his safety. As Sophie, although of high aristocratic birth, was not from a dynastic family, her union with the Habsburg heir presumptive could only be a morganatic marriage. Emperor Franz Joseph had only consented to their marriage on the condition that their descendants would never ascend the throne. The 14th anniversary of their marriage fell on 28 June. As historian A. J. P. Taylor observes: Franz Ferdinand was an