Ongoing History Daily: The original Franz Ferdinand
The original Franz Ferdinand was the Austrian archduke whose assassination on June 28, 1914, triggered the start of World War 1. The band Franz Ferdinand was formed in Glasgow in 2002. However, their name didn’t directly come from the archduke.
When the band was coming together, the members—all keen fans of horseracing, apparently—watched the 2001 Northumberland Plate. The winner was a horse named Archduke Ferdinand. That led to a discussion about the actual archduke. To them, the alliteration of “Franz Ferdinand” sounded cool and had little to do with what happened in 1914.
Still, that event changed the world and the band wanted to do the same with their music—although with a lot less violence, obviously. So Franz Ferdinand it was.
