On this day in history... ... June 28 of 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie of Austro-Hungary were shot and killed in Sarajevo by Serbian student Gavrilo Princip. The series of cascading ultimata handed down by the respective European allies led to the proverbial "guns of August," the outbreak of World War I. ...June 28, 1919, the Paris Peace Conference culminated with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. During the five years in between one June 28 and the other, nearly 20 million people (1/50 of the combined population of the respective combatants) were dead. A.A. Milne noted, in his salient 1936 treatise "Peace With Honor," a nation goes to war to defend its honor; and of what does its honor consist? Its reputation for the ability to make war. This is a vicious and self-defeating cycle, which those with a sense of history should ponder on June 28.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:24:02 +0000