http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/french-revolutionaries-storm-bastille
July 14, 1789: French revolutionaries storm Bastille
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 Bastille was originally constructed in 1370 as a bastide, or "fortification," to protect the walled city of Paris from English attack. It was later made into an independent stronghold, and its name--bastide--was corrupted to Bastille. The Bastille was first used as a state prison in the 17th century, and its cells were reserved for upper-class felons, political troublemakers, and spies. Most prisoners there were imprisoned without a trial under direct orders of the king. Standing 100 feet tall and surrounded by a moat more than 80 feet wide, the Bastille was an imposing structure in the Parisian landscape.
By the summer of 1789, France was moving quickly toward revolution. There were severe food shortages in France that year, and popular resentment against the rule of King Louis XVI was turning to fury. In June, the Third Estate, which represented commoners and the lower clergy, declared itself the National Assembly and called for the drafting of a constitution. Initially seeming to yield, Louis legalized the National Assembly but then surrounded Paris with troops and dismissed Jacques Necker, a popular minister of state who had supported reforms. In response, mobs began rioting in Paris at the instigation of revolutionary leaders.
Bernard-Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille, feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries and so requested reinforcements. A company of Swiss mercenary soldiers arrived on July 7 to bolster his garrison of 82 soldiers. The Marquis de Sade, one of the few prisoners in the Bastille at the time, was transferred to an insane asylum after he attempted to incite a crowd outside his window by yelling: "They are massacring the prisoners; you must come and free them." On July 12, royal authorities transferred 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille from the Paris Arsenal, which was more vulnerable to attack. Launay brought his men into the Bastille and raised its two drawbridges.
On July 13, revolutionaries with muskets began firing at soldiers standing guard on the Bastille's towers and then took cover in the Bastille's courtyard when Launay's men fired back. That evening, mobs stormed the Paris Arsenal and another armory and acquired thousands of muskets. At dawn on July 14, a great crowd armed with muskets, swords, and various makeshift weapons began to gather around the Bastille.
Launay received a delegation of revolutionary leaders but refused to surrender the fortress and its munitions as they requested. He later received a second delegation and promised he would not open fire on the crowd. To convince the revolutionaries, he showed them that his cannons were not loaded. Instead of calming the agitated crowd, news of the unloaded cannons emboldened a group of men to climb over the outer wall of the courtyard and lower a drawbridge. Three hundred revolutionaries rushed in, and Launay's men took up a defensive position. When the mob outside began trying to lower the second drawbridge, Launay ordered his men to open fire. One hundred rioters were killed or wounded.
Launay's men were able to hold the mob back, but more and more Parisians were converging on the Bastille. Around 3 p.m., a company of deserters from the French army arrived. The soldiers, hidden by smoke from fires set by the mob, dragged five cannons into the courtyard and aimed them at the Bastille. Launay raised a white flag of surrender over the fortress. Launay and his men were taken into custody, the gunpowder and cannons were seized, and the seven prisoners of the Bastille were freed. Upon arriving at the Hotel de Ville, where Launay was to be arrested by a revolutionary council, the governor was pulled away from his escort by a mob and murdered.
The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the ancien regime and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible momentum. Joined by four-fifths of the French army, the revolutionaries seized control of Paris and then the French countryside, forcing King Louis XVI to accept a constitutional government. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished and Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette were sent to the guillotine for treason in 1793.
By order of the new revolutionary government, the Bastille was torn down. On February 6, 1790, the last stone of the hated prison-fortress was presented to the National Assembly. Today, July 14--Bastille Day--is celebrated as a national holiday in France.
Yes, today is the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris, which is the most iconic single event of the French Revolution, and really got the ball rolling. The first part of the French Revolution was more or less seen as promising and positive. It was not completely bloodless, but the ideas prevailed, and it seemed, on some level, that all sides were working together on some level to bring about reform, even King Louis XVI. That would change, of course. From 1793 onwards, the image of the Revolution changes significantly, with the Reign of Terror. Public beheadings with the dreaded guillotine spun out of control, and the excesses began to take a toll on France. Edmund Burke accurately predicted that the turmoil in France would end with a dictator, and he was right. Napoleon was essentially that. He would eventually take over control of the nation, crowning himself Emperor, and the wars that other nations had waged against France would be the pretext for Napoleon to take over much of Europe, before his eventual defeat and demise at Waterloo.
The French Revolution may have been defined by it's excess, yet it's impact was felt for a long time afterwards. It influenced countless revolutions and populist movements afterwards, and an argument could be made that the three major forms of government that would emerge in the twentieth century - democracy, totalitarianism, and communism, all had their roots during the Revolution. It went beyond that, as well. There was a focus on reason over religion, and they even tried to implement a new calendar entirely. The Revolution ultimately was forcibly suppressed by the victorious powers, and the monarchy was reinstated. Yet, France was never the same country again, and the situation was never the same. France would see a series of political revolutions throughout the nineteenth century, and the notion of the old order, of extreme feudalism with an absolute monarchy sucking up all the nation's wealth, leaving millions poor and destitute, was over. Poverty and oppression still existed in France, as it does everywhere else, but the flaunting of excess and wealth by the privileged elite was a thing of the past. In that sense, the French Revolution had value, despite the excesses.
Some of the other events that transpired on this date in history are pretty fascinating, as well. An important date in history for France outside of Bastille Day. Louis VIII replaced his father as king almost eight hundred years ago. Hungarians defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Belgrade. Joseph Priestley was forced out of town for supporting the French Revolution. The US Congress passed the Sedition Act, effectively making criticism of the government illegal. In a case I know mostly from Vonnegut's telling of it, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. On the same day that it would begin forced sterilizations of those with hereditary illnesses, the Nazi Party became the only legal party in Germany. The US Armed Forces were able to reach Japan itself for bombardment. More than a year after the end of the European part of World War II, as well as the Holocaust that mostly targeted Jews, ended, there was a pogrom against Jews, including many Holocaust survivors, in Kielce, Poland. The Soviet Union successfully tested their first nuclear weapon. There was a failed military coup in Mali in 1991, and a failed assassintion attempt on French President Jacques Chirac in 2002.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1223 - Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II (Philip Augustus)
1420 - Battle at Vitkov Zizka's hill (Prague): Taboriets beat Bohemia
1430 - Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.
1456 - Hungarians defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade.
1520 - Battle of Otumba Mexico: Hernan Cortes & Tlascala's vs Aztecs
1535 - Emperor Charles V conquerors Tunis
1536 - France and Portugal signed the naval treaty of Lyons, which aligned them against Spain.
1544 - English troops attack The Canal
1581 - English jesuit Edmund Campion arrested
1682 - Henry Purcell appointed organist of Chapel Royal, London
1698 - The Darien scheme begins with five ships, bearing about 1,200 people, departing Leith for the Isthmus of Panama.
1714 - Battle of Aland, Russian fleet overpowers larger Swedish fleet
1769 - The de Portolá Expedition establishes a base in California, and sets out to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).
1771 - Mission San Antonio de Padua founded in California
1789 - Bastille Day-French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.
1791 - The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England.
1798 - First direct federal tax on states-on dwellings, land & slaves
1798 - The U.S. Congress passed the Sedition Act. The act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter "false, scandalous & malicious" about the U.S. government.
1822 - Slave revolt in South Carolina under Denmark Vesey/Peter Poyas
1823 - Switzerland signed boundaries for fugitives
1832 - Opium exempted from federal tariff duty
1845 - First postmasters' provisional stamps issued, NYC
1845 - Fire in NYC destroys 1,000 homes & kills many
1850 - First public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration
1853 - First US World's fair opens (Crystal Palace NY)
1853 - Commodore Perry requests trade relations with Japan
1853 - Pres Franklin Pierce opens 1st industrial exposition (NY)
1861 - Gen McDowell advances toward Fairfax Courthouse, VA with 40,000 troops
1861 - Naval Engagement at Wilmington NC - USS Daylight establishes blockade
1863 - Battle of Falling Waters, MD (Beaver Creek)
1863 - Jews of Holstein Germany granted equality
1864 - Gold is discovered in Helena, Mont
1865 - Whymper, Hudson, Croz, Douglas & Hadow 1st to climb Matterhorn
1868 - Alvin J. Fellows patented the tape measure.
1877 - General strike brings US railroad to a stand still
1881 - Billy the Kid was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett in New Mexico
1891 - John T Smith patented corkboard
1891 - The primacy of Thomas Edison's lamp patents was upheld in the court decision Electric Light Company vs. U.S. Electric Lighting Company.
1900 - European Allies retook Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers.
1902 - The Campanile in St Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the loggetta.
1908 - "The Adventures of Dolly" opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City.
1909 - Germany chancellor Bernhard von Bulow resigns
1911 - Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft.
1911 - 46" of rain begins to fall in Baguio, Philippines
1912 - Kenneth McArthur runs Olympic record marathon (2:36:54.8) Rocket Pioneer Robert H. GoddardRocket Pioneer Robert H. Goddard
1914 - First patent for liquid-fueled rocket design granted (Robert Goddard)
1914 - NL's Boston Braves start climb from last place to world series sweep
1916 - 33.6 cm rainfall at Effingham SC (state record)
1916 - St Louis Brown Ernie Koob pitches all 17 inns in a 0-0 tie vs Boston
1918 - Dutch government reclaims South seas
1921 - In one of the most controversial cases in U.S. history, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham, Mass, of murdering two, including killing their shoe company's paymaster, and were sentenced to death.
1927 - First commercial airplane flight in Hawaii
1932 - Belgian Chamber rules Dutch language for education of Flanders
1933 - Germany began mandatory sterilization of those with hereditary illness
1933 - NSDAP becomes only party in Germany, as all German political parties except the Nazi Party were outlawed.
1933 - Verity bowls out Essex twice in a day, 8-47 & 9-44, at Leyton
1934 - 116°F (47°C), Orogrande NM (state record, broken on June 27, 1994)
1934 - NY Times erroneously declares Ruth 700 HR record to stand for all time
1934 - Phillies score 11 runs in an inning, beats Cincinnati 18-0
1934 - Ruth hits 700th career home run
1936 - One million demonstrate to support French People's Front government
1936 - 116°F (47°C), Collegeville, Indiana (state record)
1938 - Benito Mussolini published anti-Jewish/African manifest
1940 - Due to beanball wars, Spalding advertises batting helmet with earflaps
1940 - Lithuania becomes Lithuanian SSR
1940 - A force of German Ju-88 bombers attacked Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete.
1941 - Vichy French Foreign Legionaries signed an armistice in Damascus, which allowed them to join the Free French Foreign Legion.
1941 - 6,000 Lithuanian Jews are exterminated at Viszalsyan Camp
1941 - Cease fire of Joan of Arc (ends combat in Lebanon & Syria)
1941 - Jam rationed in Holland
1942 - First transport of Amsterdam Jews to Westerbork
1942 - Riots against Jews in Amsterdam
1944 - Attempt to liberate prisoners in Amsterdam fails, John Post arrested
1944 - US assault on Coutances Cotentin
1945 - American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time. The battleship USS South Dakota is first US ship to bombard Japan
1946 - Dr Ben Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published
1946 - Mass murder on Jews in Kielce Poland
1946 - Dr. Benjamin Spock’s "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" was first published.
1946 - Cleve Lou Boudreau hits 4 doubles & HR but Red Sox win 11-10 on Ted Williams 3 HR with 8 RBIs
1948 - Israel bombed Cairo
1948 - Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, is shot near to the Italian Parliament.
1949 - USSR explodes their first atom bomb
1950 - RE Wayne awarded first Distinguished Flying Cross in Korea
1951 - "Courtin' Time" closes at National Theater NYC after 37 performances
1951 - "Make a Wish" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 102 perfs
1951 - Citation becomes 1st horse to win $1,000,000 in races
1951 - The first sports event to be shown in color, on CBS-TV, was the Molly Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, NJ - a horse race.
1951 - The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, MO, became the first national park to honor an African American.
1952 - SS United States crosses Atlantic in 84:12 (record westward)
1953 - First Natl monument dedicated to a Negro-George Washington Carver
1953 - 20th All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 5-1 at Crosley Field, Cincinnati
1953 - Communist offensive in Korea
1954 - 117°F (47°C), East St Louis, Illinois (state record)
1954 - 118°F (48°C), Warsaw & Union, Missouri (state record)
1955 - 2 killed, many dazed when lightning strikes Ascott racetrack, England
1956 - Boston Red Sox Mel Parnell no-hits Chicago White Sox, 4-0
1957 - Soviet steamer "Eshghbad" sinks in Caspian Sea, drowning 270
1958 - General Abdul K Kassem forms a military government in Iraq
1958 - Pope Pius XII publishes his 39th & last encyclical Meminisse juvat Iraqi President Saddam HusseinIraqi President Saddam Hussein
1958 - Col Saddam Hussein & a military coup overthrew the monarchy in Iraq, killing King Faisal II. General Abdul Karim Kassem becomes Iraq's leader.
1958 - The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.
1959 - First atomic powered cruiser, Long Beach, Quincy Mass
1960 - Fire raging through a Guatemala City, Guatemala insane asylum kills 225, severly injuring 300
1961 - Astro's Eddie Matthews hits HR #500
1961 - Finland's Miettunen government forms
1961 - Pope John XXIII publishes encyclical Mater et magistrate
1962 - Borehole for Mont Blanc-tunnel finished
1962 - US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
1964 - Jacques Anquetil wins his 5th Tour de France
1964 - Oriole Bob Johnson's 6th straight hit as a pinch hitter
1965 - Australian Ronald Clarke runs world record 10k (27:39.4)
1965 - Israeli/Jordanian border fights
1965 - US Mariner IV, first Mars probe, passes at 6,100 miles (9,800 km), and sent back photographs of the planet.
1966 - Richard Speck rapes & kills 8 nurses in a Chicago dormitory
1967 - Surveyor 4 launched to Moon; explodes just before landing
1967 - The Who, opening for Herman's Hermits begin a US tour
1967 - Eddie Mathews (Houston Astros) hit his 500th career home run off of San Francisco Giant Juan Marichal
1968 - Atlanta Brave Hank Aaron hi his 500th career home run off San Francisco Giant Mike McCormick
1968 - Houston Astro Don Wilson strikes-out 18, beats Reds 6-1
1968 - WSWO TV channel 26 in Springfield, OH (ABC) begins broadcasting
1969 - "Futbol War" between El Salvador & Honduras begins
1969 - Soccer war - Salvador-Honduras (1000 dead)
1969 - WMUL (now WPBY) TV channel 33 in Huntington, WV (PBS) 1st broadcast
1969 - The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
1970 - 41st All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 5-4 at Riverfront Stadium, Cin
1970 - All star MVP: Carl Yastremski (Boston Red Sox)
1972 - Jean Westwood is 1st woman chosen to head Democratic Natl Committee
1972 - USSR performs underground nuclear Test
1972 - Plate ump & catcher in a game are brothers. Bill Haller is ump & Tom Haller is Tigers catcher, KC Royals win 1-0
1973 - Phil Everly storms off stage declaring an end to Everly Brothers
1974 - Billy Martin is 1st AL manager ejected by ump from 2 games in 1 day
1974 - Bundy victims Janice Ott & Denise Naslund disappear, Lk Sammamish, WA
1975 - EPCOT Center (Florida) plans announced
1976 - Jimmy Carter wins Democratic pres nomination in NYC
1976 - USSR banishes dissident Andrei Amalrik to Netherlands
1977 - North Korea shoots down US helicopter, killing 3
1977 - US House establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
1978 - Anatoly Scharansky convicted of anti-Soviet agitation
1978 - Ump Doug Harvey ejects Don Sutton after discovering 3 scuffed balls
1978 - Allen Ginsburg completes "Plutonian Ode," blocks trainload of fissile material headed for Rockwell's nuclear bomb trigger factory, Colorado
1979 - USSR performs nuclear Test
1981 - Kevin Wade's "Key Exchange," premieres in London
1981 - The All-Star Game was postponed because of a 33-day-old baseball players strike. The game was held on August 9.
1983 - Crane (Rep-R-Il) & Studds (Rep-D-Mas) admit to sex with pages
1984 - STS 41-D vehicle moves to Vandenberg AFB for remanifest of payloads
1984 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1985 - Columbia returns to Kennedy Space Center via Offutt AFB, Neb
1985 - Last USFL game-Baltimore Stars defeats Oakland Invaders, 28-24
1986 - 10 killed & 60 injured at ETA-bomb attack in Madrid
1986 - Second government of Lubbers sworn in
1986 - Motley Crue's Vince Neil begins 30 day sentence for vehicular homicide
1986 - NASA's plan to implement recommendations of Rogers commission
1986 - Paul McCartney releases "Press"
1986 - Richard W Miller became 1st FBI agent convicted of espionage
1986 - Shalamar's Howard Hewett acquitted in Miami of drug charges
1987 - 58th All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 2-0 in 13 at Oakland-Alameda Stad
1987 - All star MVP: Tim Raines (Montreal Expos)
1987 - Greyhound Bus buys Trailways Bus for $80 million
1987 - Lt Col Oliver North concludes 6 days of Congressional testimony
1987 - Rookie of the Year Award is renamed to honor Jackie Robinson
1987 - Steve Miller's star is unveiled on Hollywood's Walk of Fame
1987 - Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law
1988 - 200,000 demonstrate in Soviet Armenia for incorporation of Nagorno-Karabak
1988 - Mike Schmidt passes Mickey Mantle with his 537th HR into 7th place
1988 - WYHY radio offers $1M to anyone who can prove Elvis is still alive
1989 - 16th James Bond movies "License to Kill" premieres
1990 - "Howard Stern's Summer Show" premieres on WWOR-TV (NYC)
1991 - Failed military coup in Mali
1992 - 63rd All Star Baseball Game: AL wins 13-6 at Jack Murphy Stadium, SD
1992 - Actress Nell Carter undergoes brain surgery
1992 - All star MVP: Ken Griffey Jr (Seattle Mariners)
1992 - 386BSD is released by Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz beginning the Open Source Operating System Revolution. Linus Torvalds release his Linux soon afterwards.
1993 - Aeroflot starts non-stop flights between Moscow and NY
1994 - Gas explosion at old age home in Milan, 27 killed
1995 - LA Dodger Ramon Martinez no-hits the Florida Marlins 7-0
1995 - Ramon Martinez pitches a 7-0 no-hitter against the Marlins
1996 - "How To Succeed in Business..." closes at R Rodgers NYC after 548 perf
1996 - "Thousand Clowns" opens at Criterion Theater NYC for 32 performances
1996 - NY Yankee John Weteland sets record of 24 consecutive saves
1996 - NY Yanks sweep complete season series in Baltimore for 1st time
1997 - Bomb in Algiers kills 21 & wounds 40
1998 - Los Angeles sued 15 tobacco companies for $2.5 billion over the dangers of secondhand smoke.
2001 - Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. It was the first time that the China had been awarded the games.
2002 - French President Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt unscathed during Bastille Day celebrations.
2003 - Jerry Springer officially filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.
2007 - Russia withdraws from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.
2008 - The iTunes Music Store reached 10 million applications downloaded.
2009 - The iTunes Music Store reached 1.5 billion applications downloaded.
2012 - Suicide bomber attacks a wedding reception and kills 22 people and inures 22 in northern Afghanistan
2012 - Floods on the Japanese island of Kyushu kill 20 and displace 250,000
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jul14.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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