On June 8, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian nationalist group. The assassination set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. The assassination is often considered the immediate cause of the war, as alliances and tensions between European powers quickly escalated. The murder was part of a broader movement against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its rule over the Balkans. The war that followed caused millions of deaths and reshaped the global political landscape.