Events
History, as it was printed
Moments of Central European history, each explained with the prints made of it at the time: the story, a timeline, the people and the sources.
21 June 1621
The Old Town Square execution
Seven months after the White Mountain, twenty-seven leaders of the Bohemian revolt died on a scaffold before the Old Town Hall. It took five hours, and it was meant to be remembered.
Old Town Square, Prague · The Thirty Years' War
23 May 1618
The defenestration of Prague
Protestant nobles threw two of the emperor's governors and their secretary out of a castle window. All three lived, and the war that followed lasted thirty years.
Prague Castle · The Thirty Years' War
8 November 1620
The battle of the White Mountain
The army of the Bohemian estates was beaten in under two hours on a hill outside Prague. Its king fled the next day, and the revolt was over.
Bílá hora, west of Prague · The Thirty Years' War
24 October 1648
The Peace of Westphalia
Thirty years after the defenestration, the war that began in Prague ended in two towns in Westphalia. In Prague, the fighting stopped on the stone bridge.
Münster and Osnabrück · The Thirty Years' War
12 September 1683
The siege of Vienna
For two months an Ottoman army besieged Vienna. Then a relieving army came over the hills of the Vienna Woods and broke the siege in a day.
Vienna and the Kahlenberg · The Great Turkish War