First Defenestration of Prague

Date: July 30, 1419 • Location: Praha 1, Czech Republic

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1419–1434.

First Defenestration of Prague: A crowd of radical Hussites kill seven members of the Prague city council.

The Defenestrations of Prague were three incidents in the history of Bohemia in which people were defenestrated. Though already existing in Middle French, the word defenestrate is believed to have first been used in English in reference to the episodes in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates threw two royal governors and their secretary out of a window of the Hradčany Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their action. In the Middle Ages and early modern times, defenestration was not uncommon—the act carried elements of lynching and mob violence in the form of murder committed together.