Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing

history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.

History is full of what academics call hinge points. These are singular events that changed

everything that came after. Some are obvious and easy to understand with a little hindsight.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, for example.

We're going to feel the effects from that one for a long, long time.

But then there are little-known historical subtleties.

For example, one night in April 1914,

a letter arrived in a cafe in Sarajevo called Zelatnamurana.

Inside the envelope was a newspaper clipping explaining that the Archduke Francis

Ferdinand, a member of the ruling class in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, was coming to

town on June the 28th.

Now, the people who read that clipping that night in April in the cafe were members of a terrorist

group.

They decided then and there that the Duke had to go.

So when June 28th came up, one member of this group, a guy with the name of Gavriel Princip,

managed to catch up with the Archduke's motorcade and shot him in the heart. That assassination

was the trigger for World War I and everything in the 20th century that followed.

One little newspaper clipping helps set the stage for everything that happened in the entire century and beyond.

Ever hear that story?

Probably not, unless you're a real student of World War I.

Now to the next question.

...