Confusingly, this famous expression is used to describe any number of events. But three are the most important: One has to do with baseball. Another has to do with the American Revolution. And the third “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” took place right here in Sarajevo…on this very corner:
Armchair historians geek out in Sarajevo. They know it as the place where, on June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the heir to the Habsburg Empire) was gunned down by the teenaged Serb separatist Gavrilo Princip. That assassination set off a chain of events that plunged the planet into a Great War.
Standing on this spot, you can imagine Gavrilo Princip raising his gun and firing the fatal shot into the archduke’s open-top car. But famous as it is, the improbable chain of events that led to the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” is nothing short of ridiculous: Princip was simply hanging out at this corner after an assassination attempt earlier in the day had failed. Suddenly, Franz Ferdinand — whose driver had gotten lost and pulled off on this side-street to check the map — happened to pull up in front of him. Bang!
Today there’s not much to see at this nondescript Sarajevo corner — just a plaque and a modest museum of the Habsburg era. But just standing here is enough to send shivers down the spine of any fan of 20th-century history.
Meanwhile, just up the street stands another important landmark of the Habsburg era. The Viennese-flavored, Neo-Moorish-style City Hall is where Franz Ferdinand had visited just moments before his death. Later it became the university library. And during the siege of the 1990s, it burned to the ground. The “Cellist of Sarajevo” (Vedran Smailović) famously played his instrument in the smoldering rubble here, ignoring the snipers’ bullets that whizzed overhead — embodying the proud perseverance of the besieged Sarajevans. While recovery has been slow, Sarajevo commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Ferdinand assassination last year by unveiling this fully remodeled building. It’s been painstakingly restored to its original glory, right down to the many lavishly hand-crafted details.
While at the Military Museum in Vienna, seeing Franz Ferdinand’s blood-stained coat and the car in which he and Sophie rode in when they were assassinated was also a chilling experience. This one event led to one world war, which set the stage for the second one, which shaped the post-modern world that we live in.