With that in mind, the subject of today's blog proceeds accordingly:
the word "defenestrate."
Hehehehe...had you going there, didn't I?
The word "defenestrate" originated in the early 1600s* and comes from the root "fenestra," Latin for window. Parsed up into de/fenestrate, it means in this case out of/window - literally, "the act of throwing something, or especially someone, out of a window."
Probably the most famous defenestrations in history were the First and Second Defenestrations of Prague. Even if you were an attentive scholar, you probably thought there was only one famous Czech window-toss.**
Though it wasn't called a defenestration until its successor made history, the First Defenestration of Prague occurred on July 30, 1419. It began with the march of an armed congregation of Czech Hussites through the streets of Prague, protesting the imprisonment of several of their fellows. They marched to the New Town Hall, where the Catholic councilors refused to even make a prisoner exchange.
That's when an Anti-Hussite had the bright idea of throwing a rock*** at one of the protesters.
What goes up must come down. Several of the crowd stormed the New Town Hall and all seven of the councilors came down, through the window and onto the upright spears of the protesters below.
For the Protestants in 1618 who had heard of this former triumph, the preliminaries to the Second Defenestration must have seemed déjà vu. In 1617, Roman Catholic bigwigs ordered builders to abandon construction of several Protestant churches on allegedly Church-owned land. The Protestants claimed it belonged to the king and was, therefore, theirs upon which to build. They treated this development as the denial of a basic right, and feared the denial of other rights for Protestants was soon to follow.
After a few meetings, the riled non-Catholic nobility barged into the Bohemian Chancellery at Prague Castle. The crowd tried two despised governors, both staunchly Catholic and notorious persecutors of Protestants, for violating the Right of Freedom of Religion.****
Old habits die hard, and amid cheers and shattered glass, the convicted and their scribe plummeted 16 meters (that's 52.5 feet, folks) to the ground.
The governors and scribe fell not onto skull-cracking cobblestones, but - some said providentially, others said coincidentally - onto a large pile of manure, and thereby survived the drop unscathed.
Though punished capitally for such high-rise aristicide, Czech Protestants certainly knew how to make an exit.
Comic book fans might remember another notable defenestration, given the recent movie adaptation of the timeless series: Watchmen. While the movie's version isn't quite true to that of the book, it's nonetheless impressive.
Even more impressive: a reverse defenestration, courtesy of Chuck Norris.
So remember, kids, if you ever get kidnapped and held for questioning under pain of death by Czech hypernationalists who despise everything your c0untry stands for, there are worse ways to die. And luckily, it doesn't always work!*****
Information purloined from dictionary.com, New World Encyclopedia, OnlineConversion.com; picture purloined from Wikimedia Commons
* - though arguably if this part of the Old Testament is true, Jezebel might've been the first
** - Unless you count when the Scottish ambassador challenged the king to a cathedral caber-toss
*** - Or petrojected (petro = rock/ject = to throw) at one of the protesters!******
**** - And we're not taking a cue from the Czechs about punishment for First Amendment violators because...?
***** - Defenestration into a railroad spike factory Dumpster greatly diminishes the likelihood of survival
****** - seeing as I only wish this word existed, I do not endorse its use in Scrabble
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