The 12 Most Influential Royal Slayings In World History

Perhaps the most consequential royal assassination in modern history was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By 1914, the Empire was a fraying quilt of various ethnic and national groups stitched together. Bosnia - with the city of Sarajevo - had been annexed by the Empire in 1908, much to the fury of neighboring Serbia. So, when Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the air was rife with tension.

While traveling in an open-air motorcar with his wife Sophie, the Archduke's car was approached by a Slav nationalist who pulled out a pistol and shot the royal couple to death. The murder of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at the hands of 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was the spark that ignited World War I. In retaliation for the death of its heir, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This declaration of war ultimately pulled Germany, Russia, France, and Great Britain into war as well, thanks to their complicated networks of alliances. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Alexander II of Russia was known as a reformer. In 1861 - the same year America fell into civil war over the question of slavery - Alexander emancipated the serfs, Russia's medieval form of unfree labor. He also worked to reform the Russian judicial system.  

But the reforms of "Alexander the Liberator" weren't enough for a divided Russia. He could also be repressive and suspicious of political movements. On March 13, 1881, the 62-year-old Emperor was traveling in his carriage in St. Petersburg when anarchists threw bombs at him. Alexander died an hour later.

Alexander II's successors learned a lesson from the assassination: be firm, be conservative, and don't trust the people. This lesson would shape the final decades of the Romanov imperial dynasty, ultimately alienating the Russian people and leading to revolution.

Before the guillotine infamously lopped off the heads of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution, the most famous act of political regicide in Europe was the execution of King Charles I during the English Civil Wars. 

Throughout the course of his nearly 24-year reign, Charles routinely butted heads with an increasingly restless and powerful Parliament. Tensions broke out into open rebellion; King and Cavalier fought against Parliamentarian and Roundhead throughout the 1640s. 

After Parliament's victories on the battlefield, it became clear that Charles was not going to be good at sharing power. So, the English Parliament went out of its way to legally and politically justify killing a King. And they were successful in their endeavor - Charles was beheaded on January 30, 1649. 

The democratic repercussions of Charles's murder cannot be exaggerated: it was a significant step in a representational Parliament checking the power of a European monarch. 

One of the most significant rulers in Southeast Asian history is Tabinshwehti, King of Burma during the 16th century. Though he orchestrated the expansion of the Burmese kingdom and founded the Toungoo Empire, he also loved wine. A lot. He soon became an alcoholic, and rivals sensed an opportunity. In their opinion, Tabinshwehti was not so great, after all, and was a weak man. So in 1550, the 34-year-old warrior king was slain in his sleep.

Historian Victor Lieberman characterized Tabinshwehti's death as "one of the great turning points of mainland history," since it resulted in increased warfare and ethnic tensions in Southeast Asia. 

The Russian Revolution began in 1917 when soldiers, peasants, and workers were sick and tired of fighting in what seemed like a never-ending, pointless war. The revolution meant an end to the imperial dynasty. And so the Romanov family, headed by Tsar Nicholas II, was unceremoniously kicked out of power. Nicholas and his close-knit clan - including a wife he deeply loved and their five children, were banished to Yekaterinburg, Russia. There, they were imprisoned in Ipatiev House, known as the "House of Special Purpose." Unfortunately, the best kind of tsar to the Bolsheviks was a dead one. 

In the early morning hours of July 17, 1918, the family was summoned from their beds and told they would need to flee the house. They were shepherded down to a basement room. Minutes later, a firing squad piled into the room, and a death sentence for the imperial family was read out. The gunfire began immediately and lasted for around 20 minutes.

By the end of the first round, only Nicholas and Alexandra were dead. Their children lay breathing and bleeding on the floor; they had unwittingly crafted their own bullet-proof vests by sewing jewels into their clothing so that they could carry some wealth with them when they fled the house. Since the bullets ricocheted off the children, the executioners resorted to bayoneting them to death. 

The murder of the Romanovs heralded the end of imperial Russia and the beginning of the Soviet regime. It was one of the bloodiest political acts of the 20th century. 

Born an English nobleman, Lord Darnley married royalty in 1565 when he took Mary, Queen of Scotland, as his bride. Though Mary was initially smitten with the handsome nobleman, his true colors quickly showed, and his vain, shallow, and drunken ways soon made him unpopular at the Scottish court. His aggressive quest for greater power within the court did him no favors either. So, on February 9, 1567, he was found dead, the victim of an apparent murder. 

Though no one missed Darnley, many used his death as damning evidence against the similarly unpopular Scottish queen. Some suspected that Mary and her friend the Earl of Bothwell - whom some claimed was her lover - were the masterminds behind Darnley's demise. The antagonism towards Mary only increased in subsequent months. In July 1567, she would abdicate the throne and live out the rest of her life in exile in England until she herself would become the victim of political intrigue.