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.