The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1918, in Sarajevo, Bosnia (later Yugoslavia) by Gavrilo Princip. This assassination set in motion a number of diplomatic manuevers in Europe that resulted in the beginning of World War I. The assassination of Grigori Rasputin on December 30, 1916. A Russian monk, Rasputin was killed by a group of right-wing patriots after he rose to political power and challenged the authority of the Czar. Czar Nicholas II, killed on July 16, 1918. Corruption and scandal during his reign in Russia eventually led to the shooting deaths of him and his family by the revolutionary Bolsheviks at Ekaterinberg. Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary. An attempt on his life was made after he became