Defenestration of Prague

An incident in Prague in 1419 that marked the beginning of the Hussite revolution in Bohemia. Because of popular support for the religious leader Jan Huss following his execution in 1415, King Wenceslas imposed a council of reactionary German merchants on the city of Prague. Their persecution of leading Bohemian reformers was so deeply resented that citizens rioted and threw them out of the windows of the town hall, impaling them on pikes. Less than three weeks later, on 16 August 1419, Wenceslas died of a stroke, and the Hussite wars began in earnest.

Defenestration of Prague

Scene from the Defenestration of Prague, 1618. After the Roman Catholic Habsburgs became rulers of Bohemia in 1526 they attempted to crush Bohemian Protestantism. In defence of their religious and civil liberties, on 22 May 1618 Bohemians disrupted a meeting of the Catholic governors and threw them from the windows – an event that played a major part in sparking off the Thirty Years' War.

An incident in Prague in 1618 that sparked off the Thirty Years' War. When Ferdinand (1578–1637), Archduke of Styria, was elected king of Bohemia in 1617 and chosen to succeed Matthias as emperor, the Bohemian Protestants feared for their religious and civil freedom. On 23 May 1618, invading the Hradschin Palace, they broke up a meeting of the imperial commissioners and threw two Catholic councillors and their secretary out of the window (though they survived the fall).