Empress Elisabeth Assassinated

September 10, 1898

On a lakeside promenade in Geneva, a young Italian anarchist named Luigi Lucheni stabbed Austria's beautiful, troubled empress - known as Sisi - with a sharpened file. She walked a few steps before collapsing. Lucheni had wanted to kill any royal. The Habsburgs, already miserable, lost another. Her funeral was one of the last great imperial ceremonies.