When Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, he triggered World War I. Seldom has one person's actions had such devastating consequences, but political assassinations have always changed the world—often in unexpected ways. Surveying history, Nigel Cawthorne traces the cause and effect of 48 assassinations, including those of Julius Caesar, Thomas Becket, Jean-Paul Marat, Abraham Lincoln, the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr., Benazir Bhutto, Yitzhak Rabin, John Lennon, and Osama bin Laden.