Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Danilo Ilić, an organizer with a Serbian secret society called The Black Hand, recruited six young assassins to kill Archduke Ferdinand. He placed the six killers along Ferdinand’s motorcade route through Sarajevo. The first two assassins, armed with bombs and a pistol, wimped out. The third assassin threw his bomb, but it bounced off the folded-back convertible cover and blew up the car behind them. He swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped into the Miljacka River. However, the cyanide only induced vomiting and the Miljacka was only four inches deep. A crowd dragged him out of the river and beat him severely. Ferdinand’s car sped away and he managed to make a scheduled public speech.

After his speech, Ferdinand headed to the hospital to visit those wounded by the bomb. One of the six assassins, Gavrilo Princip, was getting a sandwich and saw Ferdinand’s car reversing after the driver had taken a wrong turn. He ran up and fired two shots into the open car, killing Ferdinand and his wife. The killing triggered World War I and Princip was only 19 years old. What kind of world-changing act did you perform by the time you were 19?

Check out the rest of the list on The Top 10 Craziest Assassinations.