Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb student and member of the nationalist group Young Bosnia who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Motivated by South Slavic nationalist ideals seeking liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule, his act set off the diplomatic and military crisis, known as the July Crisis, that directly precipitated the outbreak of the First World War. Because he was nineteen years old at the time of the assassination, too young under Austro-Hungarian law to receive the death penalty, he was instead sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. He died in custody at the Terezin fortress in 1918 from tuberculosis, worsened by the harsh conditions of his confinement.