One Madman’s Legacy



The perpetrator was someone you probably never heard of: Gavrilo Princip. He was a Serbian nationalist who, on that day, murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie.

Within a month, World War I started in Europe. Before it was over, the Habsburg dynasty (the reigning power in Europe for six centuries) would be deposed, deficit spending to finance the war would destroy most countries’ currencies and end the gold standard, the income tax was adopted in the United States to pay for the war and the seeds would be planted for the rise of communism in Russia, Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy.

It’s amazing what one madman’s deed led to, isn’t it?

—Chip Wood


Personal Liberty

Chip Wood


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