Episode Notes:
On the morning of May 23rd, 1618, a group of Protestant noblemen marched into the royal council chamber of Prague Castle and threw three men out of a window. The drop was seventy feet. All three survived. Catholics said it was angels. Protestants said it was a dung heap. Both sides immediately printed pamphlets. And within months, the Thirty Years War had begun — a conflict that would kill up to eleven million people and permanently reshape the relationship between religion and political power in the Western world.
Host Shawn Spainhour takes you into the full story: the centuries of religious tension between Catholic and Protestant powers in central Europe, the fragile Bohemian nobility and their collision with Habsburg authority, and the three men who fell from that window and set an entire continent on fire. This episode follows the chain of consequence from a single morning in Prague all the way to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — the settlement that laid the foundation for the modern nation-state and the separation of church and state.
Strange Epochs tells true stories from history’s stranger corners. Each episode is written for deep listening — slow, atmospheric, and immersive. Whether you’re behind the wheel, unwinding after a long day, or settling in for sleep, this show is built to pull you in and carry you somewhere else.
Sources are listed in the show notes:
- Wilson, Peter H. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy. Harvard University Press, 2009.
- Parker, Geoffrey. The Thirty Years War. Routledge, second edition, 1987.
- Wikipedia contributors. Defenestrations of Prague. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024.
- Britannica editors. Defenestration of Prague. Encyclopaedia Britannica, updated 2024.
- German History in Documents and Images. The War Begins: The Defenestration of Prague, May 1618. German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., 2023.
- Slavata, Wilhelm. Personal memoir and account of the defenestration, circa 1620–1630. Referenced in Wilson and Parker.
- Public Domain Review. Windows Onto History: The Defenestrations of Prague. 2024.
- Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. Out the Window: Religion, Politics, and a Defenestration in Prague. Ohio State University, 2018.