Franz Ferdinand was born in Graz, Styria, in 1863, the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria and his wife, Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. He received a military education and served in the Austro-Hungarian army, eventually becoming inspector general of the armed forces.
In 1896, Franz Ferdinand's cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide, leaving Franz Ferdinand as the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. However, his morganatic marriage to Sophie, Countess Chotek, in 1900 caused significant controversy and scandal due to Sophie's lower social status. The emperor, Franz Joseph I, only reluctantly approved the marriage on the condition that any children from the union would be excluded from the line of succession.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were visiting Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina (annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908), in June 1914 when they were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Princip was a member of the Black Hand, a secret society dedicated to the unification of all South Slavic peoples into a single state and the end of Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The assassination triggered a chain of events that ultimately led to the outbreak of World War I.
Franz Ferdinand's assassination had a profound impact on European history. It directly led to the outbreak of World War I, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the collapse of several empires, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination also contributed to the rise of nationalism in Europe and the ideological conflict between democracy and autocracy that characterized much of the 20th century.