World War I and How Gavrilo Princip changed the History of Europe (and the world)

Alright most of us know how how the first World War started. Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand is assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip as the Archduke's car was touring Sarajevo. This kick starts a domino effect (Austria declares war on Serbia, Russia declares war on Austria, etc.) sending most of the worlds major nations headlong into war.
























I'm gonna make the case that Gavrilo's actions on that day for better or for worse quite possibly changed the course of not just of 1914 Europe, but of the entire world for the next 100 years and maybe even our lives today.

First we have the previously mentioned consequence. World War One. Now it is not necessarily true that Princip alone is responsible for the first World War. Long before the Archduke's death, Europe sweltered under Nationalist politics and some sort of war (be it economic or actual conflict) was possibly inevitable. But most history books would agree that Princip provided the catalyst.

Nearly every major power on at the time contributed in some way to WWI. By the end of it several million lay dead, tens of millions more wounded and far more than that were homeless. It was by far the deadliest war in the history of the world.


to that point....


After the Central Powers surrender in 1918, Germany incured huge amounts of war debt, leading the German Mark to be almost completely worthless, again Millions without a home or a job. The tremendous political unrest that followed would allow this man to be elected chancellor....


























You can kind of see where this is going. World War II, Holocaust, Post World War II Europe.

Again millions lay dead, entire nations lay in tatters, the United States and the Soviet Union (who's very existence is tied closely to WWI) emerge as the worlds leading superpowers and warfare would never be the same again.



From here we move to the Cold War, the space race, East and West Germany, the Iron Curtain, along with the Berlin Wall, and the Korean and Vietnam War's.



If you really wanted to, you could go much deeper. Such as the technologies that came out of both World Wars (faster airplanes, New Medical Techniques, Television), post economic America, the hippie counter revolution of the 60's (in large part a reaction to Vietnam) and how British in 1916 and the United States and Russia in 1980 set the stage for the Mujahideen which would become the Taliban.

All can be traced back to a seemingly small conflict between Serbia and Austria and an Assassin named Gavrilo Princep. Its amazing the repercussions small events can have on History. And if you really really want to dig into it, through a set of very loosly connected events its entirely conceivable that we could live in very different world had just a few of these things gone different. Think about that next time you watch the World News.