Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918) was an ethnic Serb and Yugoslav nationalist. In June, 1914, he assassinated both Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. This act began a political chain reaction that sparked World War I. As World War II arose directly from World War I, Princip is arguably one of the most important people of the 20th century.

Princip died of tuberculosis in April, 1918, and so did not live to see the outcome of the war. He was lionized in communist Yugoslavia, but has fallen somewhat out of favor as a consequence of Yugoslavia's post-communist civil wars.

Gavrilo Princip in Hitler's War
Gavrilo Princip's actions were eerily echoed in 1938 when Czech nationalist Jaroslav Stribny assassinated Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler seized on this assassination as a casus belli to invade Czechoslovakia. Hitler took great delight in noting both assassins were Slavs.