In 1914, a Bosnian Serb shot the Archduke of Serbia.

Why did 22 million young people from all over the world have die in the war to end all wars becauae of that?

Why did the U.S. get into that war?

No, not the sinking of the Lusitania. Wilson wanted in well before that, just like FDR wanted in well before Pearl Harbor. Both of them simply used isolated incidents as propaganda tools to overcome public resistance to war. (News flash. PTB always have to sell war to us, usually by demonizing the other side, while hushing up our own faults. The demand for war never comes up from the people to the PTB, at least not until after someone has waged a mighty propaganda campaign.)

Anyway, any thoughts on the real story? Did that, too, have something to do with the Russian Revolution of 1905 and growing unrest in Russia for another revolution? If it did, it's an irony because WWI left the Russian military willing to join the peasantry. That is why the Revolution of 1917 succeeded, where the Revolution of 1914 only got reforms, like a Constitution.

Word to the wise: The failure of the Tsar to abide by the Constitution was one of the reasons for the growing unrest. You know, like Freedom of the Press, Freedom of (and from) Religious Worship, Right to Trial, Right to Confront Witnesses Against You, Right to Freedom from Cruel and Unusual Punishment (outsourced or not), Right to Be Free from Unreasonable (or no reason) Search and Seizure, stuff like that, which government now grants only as, when and if--and to whom--it feels like granting.

But I digress. What up with 22 million deaths, including American, in WWI?

the assassination of Lincoln, Kennedy, et al. In those cases, I am not even sure we apprehended the real shooters, let alone everyone involved, let alone going to war in which 22 million people died.

No, really, what up with WWI?

What motivated entire nations to mobilize as they did. It was horrible war and it set the stage for the next one.

Apparently the Powers That Be were far too powerful, much as they are today.