Franz Ferdinand of Austria (Cinco De Mayo)

Franz Ferdinand I of Austria (December 18, 1863 - October 17, 1931) was the Emperor of Autria and King of Hungary from 1908 until 1912, when he reformed Austria-Hungary into the Federated Empire of Austria, after which he ruled simply as Franz Ferdinand, Emperor of the Federated Empire of Austria, by which he consolidated all of his titles into one. A member of the Hapsburg dynasty, Franz Ferdinand was a critical figure in Austrian history, succeeding his uncle Franz Joseph I upon a coup by Germanic military leaders in 1908 that would lead to the drastic reform of Austrian political society into a federal state with centralized control from Vienna instead of the unstable dual monarchy. Despite tensions in 1912 and 1913, the nation rallied upon the outbreak of World War One in 1913 after a

Franz Ferdinand led Austria to a hard-fought victory over Russia and Italy, with help from his allies in Rumania and Bulgaria, while the Germans waged war in the north. As a result of the war-weariness in his nation in the postwar years, Franz Ferdinand spearheaded constitutional reforms in 1919 to expand electoral access to commoners and increase the powers of the centralized Parliament while decreasing the powers of the individual "constituent states" of Austria. A Catholic conservative and staunch monarchist, he was opposed to Adolf Hitler's Arbetarspartei that emerged in the mid-1920s as a fascist party. In 1931, the Emperor died in Graz at the age of 67.