june 28, 1914

When Gavrilo Princip shot to death the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife in Sarajevo, thus setting in motion Europe's Great War.

World War I destroyed four empires—the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian and German—and redrew the world map. It coaxed a reluctant U.S. onto the world stage, turning it into a major power. It led to Nazi promises to restore Germany to greatness, planting the seeds for World War II. And it spawned the Russian Revolution, leading ultimately to the Cold War and unleashing forces that arguably ran their course only when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989

It also redrew the maps of Europe and of the Middle East, that resulted in continuing wars and unsettled borders, with millions of refugees and dead.

Europe shifting borders