 On this date in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie were shot to death in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, an act which sparked World War I. So today, a huge date in world history. On this date in 1919, five years later, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War. On this date in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act,