What event triggered the Thirty Years' War on 23 May 1618?
On 23 May 1618 the Bohemian Protestant nobility threw two Catholic imperial regents — Vilém Slavata and Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice — along with their secretary out of an upper window of Prague Castle. The three survived the fall (Catholic pamphlets credited divine intervention; Protestant pamphlets credited the manure pile below). The defenestration triggered the Bohemian Revolt and, through it, thirty years of generalised European warfare.
Read the full facts →The Thirty Years' War was a religious and political conflict fought across central Europe from 1618 to 1648. It involved most of the major European powers, killed approximately 8 million people (a fifth of the Holy Roman Empire's population), and produced the Peace of Westphalia, the treaty that established the foundations of the modern European state system.
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