It's May 23rd, 1618, and Philip Fabricius is falling 70 feet through the air to his

almost certain death.

He's falling three stories out of a window of Prague Castle, along with his bosses, the

fanatical Catholic Lord Regions Count William Slavada and Count Yaroslav Martinets.

He's screaming, Jesus Maria help!

They are falling out of this window to their almost certain deaths because they've been

pushed out as a form of impromptu execution by some very, very angry Czech Protestant

lords.

They've been pushed by the Protestants because they had come with an order from Ferdinand

II Habsburg, the current king of Bohemia and presumptive future Holy Roman Emperor,

demanding the Protestant cease construction of their chapels on his Catholic royal land.

In that moment, the three men most likely thought they would die, but most likely could

not imagine the almost ten million others across the European continent who are about

to die due to their misfortune.

This is the defenestration of Prague!

That's a big hog!

The infamous dramatic, ridiculous moment that ignites the 30 years war.

This seemingly minor incident in the relative backwater of Bohemia will begin unraveling

the tenuous construction of pieces, truces and settlements across Europe, building from

a small dispute over Protestant privileges to a conflagration involving powers from

Rome to Stockholm, Budapest to Madrid.

This explosion of violence will be the result not just of unhealed religious divisions,

...