how the assassination of one person sparked the start of WW1
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The boarders of Europe was changing. Germany and Austria-Hungary were new empires that were growing in size. The Ottoman Empire were shrinking as they could not control the Balkans. There had already been several wars over boarder disputes between different countries. The Crimean war, Franco-Prussian war, Austro-Prussian war, etc. Even outside of Europe you had the Russo-Japanese war and the American-Spanish war. To solve the issue of all these wars in the emerging boarder disputes the countries decided to focus on alliances. Both because the country with the biggest allies could pick which boarder disputes to challenge. There was also a theory of mutually assured destruction where countries would not go to war because of the many alliances as it would trigger a great war. We already had that in the 30 years war and arguably the Napolionic wars and nobody wanted that again.
The problem was that it did not actually stop the boarder disputes. It just accumulated them over time so you had one big boarder dispute in the Balkans. This was an area with lots of post-Ottoman smaller countries that had mixed national identities within their boarders. This is how the Ottoman were able to keep control as they could pit the nations against each other to prevent them rebelling against the Ottoman. But with Ottoman influence failing there were room for other empires to step in and take control. The Balkans have lots of farmland, natural resources and industries so there were lots of tax money on the table. It was worth fighting a war over, even a great war.
So there were already a big conflict which would affect the entire continent, and all the colonies. Even the empires who could not realistically control the Balkans did not want one of the other empires controlling it as this would make them too big. So everyone was building up their armies and preparing for war. In all governments there were people discussing if they should be the first to strike.
Archduke Ferdinand were actually leading a minority in the Austro-Hungarian government who wanted to avoid a war over Balkans. After having argued his cause in Vienna he went to Sarajevo to broker a deal with the local government there. If he could get them to agree to some Austro-Hungarian presence so that they could prevent the Russians from influencing them he could promise them autonomy. It was worth a shot to try and avoid war even if it meant they could not collect taxes or have any local control.
The murder of the archduke therefore did two things. Firstly the anti-war movement in Vienna lost their highest ranked member in government and their plans for a peaceful resolution to the dispute had failed. But it also gave the pro-war advocates a reason to go to war. It painted the Balkans as this lawless place filled with terrorists. And the only way to save them was with an armed invasion. Just talking about this made it look like the great war was impending and the people in all the governments who were for being the first to attack now had good arguments. If the war was happening anyway then being the first to strike gives you the element of surprise. And it nearly worked for Germany as well as they almost got to Paris in their first attack and only a scrambled defense by the French and British were able to hold the line at a river, and some miscommunication between the two German armies left a hole in their lines that the British were able to exploit.
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