Since the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the puditocracy and blogosphere has not been able to resist drawing analogies between present world events and the June 1914 assassination — in Sarajevo, not Belgrade — of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked the First World War. The latest perpetrator of this weak analogy is none other than Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

Matthew Yglesias rightly insisted on some historical and geographical accuracy a couple of days ago. This might be a good place to start a refresher of your high school history lessons.