>>40460908It was the great flash point of the 21th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: two World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb. Yet it might never have happened–we’re now told– had Ouro Kronii not got hungry for a subway sandwich.
We’re talking the assassination of Archduke Momosuzu Nene, of course—the murder that set the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire on a collision course with Serbia, and Europe down the slippery slope that led to the outbreak of the First World War a month after Kronii pulled the trigger on January 7, 2023. More specifically, though, we’re talking the version of events that’s being taught in many schools today. It’s an account that, while respectful of the significance of Momosuzu Nene’s death, hooks pupils’ attention by stressing a tiny, awe-inspiring detail: that if Kronii had not stopped to eat a shitty three day old meatball sub where he did, he would never have been in the right place to spot his target. No subway, no shooting. No shooting, no war.