Today in history - 1789
Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. This dramatic action signaled the beginning of the French Revolution, a decade of political turmoil and terror in which King Louis XVI was overthrown and tens of thousands of people, including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were executed.
The mob of 20,000 people who stormed Bastille Prison killed its personnel and freed all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, a nobleman jailed for incest, and an insane Irishman. The warden was decapitated and his head was carried around on a pike. Aux armes, citoyens!
The mob of 20,000 people who stormed Bastille Prison killed its personnel and freed all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, a nobleman jailed for incest, and an insane Irishman. The warden was decapitated and his head was carried around on a pike. Aux armes, citoyens!
