How 2014 Is Strikingly Similar to 1914

This week rings a historical bell. On June 28, it will be exactly 100 years since one man in the Balkans changed the world forever — with two shots from a pistol in the dusty provincial town of Sarajevo. Those shots, fired by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, killed Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and set off the diplomatic donnybrook that led to four years of world war (1914–1918). In many ways, we are still living in the rubble of that war.

 

There are some obvious parallels, a century later, between 1914 and 2014. Some have speculated about whether we are at one of those times Mark Twain referred to when he famously said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.” Which ought to make us all pretty nervous. What looks similar in 2014 and 1914?

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