This episode of the Kings Hall Podcast is brought to you by Backwards Planning Financial,

Alpine Gold, Max D Trailers, Salt and Stringings Butchery, Reformation Heritage Books,

Premier Body Armour, and by our supporters at Patreon.com. You're going to be. And it came to pass when they were in the field that Kane rose up against

his brother Abel and slew him.

Genesis 4.8.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

On June 28, 1914, while visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he and his wife Sophie were

targeted by a group of young Bosnian-Serb nationalists known as the Black Hand. They sought to undermine

Austro-Hungarian rule and promote the idea of a greater Serbia. Initially,

an assassination attempt failed when a bomb thrown of their motorcade missed and injured others instead.

However, later that day as the couple's car took a wrong turn, they encountered

Gavrilo Princip, one of the conspirators.

He fired two shots killing both Franz and his wife.

The assassination itself remains shrouded in mystery, as one historian wrote, quote,

one of the most controversial issues of modern history arises from this question.

What were the assassin's motives?

And who were his instigators, if any, and his accomplices.

Sir Edward Gray, British Foreign Secretary in 1914, described the crime as the perfect

political murder in the sense that it would be impossible for the truth ever to be established."

End quote.

Regardless of motive or who was actually behind it, the assassination set off a chain reaction in Europe that has left historians puzzled to this day.

What happened in the aftermath, however, is more certain.

...