Saturday, June 28, 2014

Daniel Pipes: The Worst Day in History

 

Assassin Gavrilo Princip
 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
The Worst Day in History
By Daniel Pipes
June 28, 2014
danielpipes.org
Cross-posted from National Review Online, The Corner


A hundred years ago today, June 28, 1914, was arguably the worst day in human history. Not that anything so awful happened during those 24 hours, but the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Hapsburg throne by a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, initiated a series of events that led to not just the horrors of World War I but arguably also those of World War II as well as the rise to power of the fascist and communist movements.

In brief, that vicious era that historians have dubbed the short twentieth century, 1914-89, with its unprecedented numbers of deaths, of extremist movements, and of general human misery began with the shots that festive summer day. (June 28, 2014)

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