MicroFactzzz#0104 · 🏛️ History Gone Off the Rails
Throwing Officials Out a Window Kicked Off One of the Bloodiest Wars in European History
The Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618, when Protestant nobles threw Catholic officials out of a castle window, was the spark that ignited the Thirty Years’ War.
In May 1618, a group of Czech Protestant noblemen, outraged over restrictions on their religious freedoms, stormed Prague Castle and threw two Catholic imperial governors, along with a secretary, out of a window.
All three fell several dozen feet but survived — according to the Catholic account, thanks to divine intervention, or according to more down-to-earth explanations, thanks to landing in a pile of manure or refuse in the castle moat.
Although the incident itself caused no deaths, it became the political spark for the conflict between the Protestant Bohemian estates and the Catholic Habsburgs.
The event directly triggered the Thirty Years’ War, one of the most devastating conflicts in European history, which claimed millions of lives and ravaged large parts of the continent until 1648.
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Krulicza Nora
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