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🗓️ 17 November 2025
⏱️ ? minutes
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November 17, 1989. A student demonstration in Prague is violently shut down by the police, sparking the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. This episode originally aired in 2023.
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| 0:29.6 | It's November 17, 1989, in the streets of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Hundreds of thousands of students gather for a demonstration. |
| 0:32.6 | They carry signs and chant together, marching through the country's capital as a single mass. |
| 0:39.0 | The reason for this protest is as a memorial. |
| 0:42.0 | Exactly 50 years ago, a similar demonstration took place to rally against the Nazi occupation |
| 0:47.6 | of Prague. |
| 0:48.7 | That protest turned bloody and brutal, and several demonstrators were killed. |
| 0:53.4 | And when organizers asked for formal |
| 0:55.3 | permission to stage this march, they framed it as a way of commemorating that horrible event. But that's |
| 1:00.9 | not the only reason these students are gathering. For these protesters, Czechoslovakia is still not |
| 1:06.5 | free from a controlling global superpower. For over 40 years, the Soviet Union has run the country |
| 1:12.3 | with an iron fist, tamping down on personal freedoms, the freedom of the press, and any |
| 1:17.2 | dissension to Soviet control. Resistance has been growing, though, through underground channels |
| 1:22.4 | for decades, but today's protest marks a sea change. This march is the largest public demonstration against the government in 20 years, and it's only getting bigger. |
| 1:33.0 | The march heads towards Vensaslaus Square, where the anti-Nazi protest took place all those years ago. |
| 1:39.2 | As they get closer to the city center, more and more people join in. |
| 1:43.4 | Television crews descend on the area, |
| 1:45.6 | broadcasting the demonstration to homes around the country and bringing even more protesters |
| 1:50.1 | to the streets. With chance of freedom and 40 years or enough, the Czech people make their message |
... |
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