July Crisis
The July Crisis were a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on June 28, 1914, when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. A complex web of alliances, coupled with miscalculations when many leaders regarded war as in their best interests or felt that a general war would not occur, resulted in a general outbreak of hostilities among most major European nations in early August 1914.