re: Do you now realize how much your teachers and parents lied to you?

The difference between "cause" and "flashpoint" is enormous.

Your teacher made you think Gavrilo Princip started the bloodiest war ever all by himself by popping a cap in the Archduke. Not really. The cause of WWI is a pretty foggy concept, but most historians agree that the entangled alliances of Western Europe and Pan-Slavism in the east dragged everyone into killing one another. Ferdinand getting shot was just the spark on the powder keg.