Today is the hundredth anniversary of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination, along with his wife Sophia, in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip shot him with a .38 from five feet away. He said he did not intend to kill the archduchess. Both died on that day on their way to the hospital.
Forget how this guy was allowed to be so close to his car. Earlier that day, one of the Serbian Black Hand assassins threw a bomb at the car, which bounced off the trunk and exploded behind the car, causing a significant number of casualties. See the wiki entry: Killing the Archduke But FF made his scheduled appearance anyway! What was his security detail thinking?
Princip shot him on the return trip.
Maybe this was just stoicism in the face of the extremist threat, which was claiming European and American leaders left and right since 1900.
Or perhaps he was motivated by Theodore Roosevelt, who took a bullet in the chest in 1912 and then went ahead with a stump speech anyway.
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