41:T4ac,The 11th of November marks Remembrance Day, a memorial day honoured since the end of the First World War. Hostilities ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 after four years of global conflict. As we use this day to look back at those lost, it's important to understand what caused one of the most devastating conflicts in modern history.On the 28th of June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. His death is often cited as the spark that started the First World War - but how accurate is this statement? Claiming this assassination as an isolated incident ignores the troubling context of the time. What should've been a conflict restricted to the Balkans somehow turned into a catastrophic global conflict, with rising nationalistic sentiments brewing, and the eventual involvement of European Superpowers - what really lead Gavrilo Princip to fire a shot against the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire?In this episode, James Rogers is joined by Paul Miller-Melamed to examine the origins of the wider geopolitical context of First World War.You can find Paul Melamed's book hereFor more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter here.42:T4fb,

In June 1914, a gunman assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This event set off a chain reaction that plunged Europe’s major powers, and the wider world, into all-out war. President Woodrow Wilson was determined to keep the United States out of the conflict, but when German submarine attacks put American lives at risk, the American people would become divided over how to respond to the increasing threat.

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43:T4a8,It's 1943, you're part of the French resistance, and you've been sentenced to death. You're allowed to write one last letter before you're shot by the Nazis. Who do you write to? Friends? Family? Fellow comrades? How do you know if they'll even get it?Of the 10,000 or so executions during the Second World War, only around 700 letters remain, and today's guest, Daniel Brunstetter, Professor of Political Science at the University of California Irvine, has spent the last three years trying to track them down, and working with the families to piece together their life, death, and acts of heroism.Together, Daniel and host James Patton Rogers set the scene of occupied France, Charles de Gaulle's rallying cry to resist, and the multiple lives the letters, years after their authors were executed.The Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and mixed by Aidan Lonergan.Intro music: Ludwig van Beethoven, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsFor more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store

465. The Murder of Franz Ferdinand: The ...