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It's July 14, 1789, and an angry mob is marching through the streets of Paris.

Among the crowd is a young peasant laborer. Like the rest of the people here, this laborer has grown dissatisfied with the political system in France,

a monarchical system in which the bourgeois enjoy a life of luxury while the working class can barely afford to feed their families.

Starving and desperate, the laborer and his fellow workers flood the streets, armed with pitchforks and torches, to take a stand against the monarchy.

Up ahead, the laborer sees the stone walls of the Bastille, the notorious prison where people

who speak out against the monarchy are kept. This is where the mob is headed. The very sight of the

Bastille's towering battlements fills the young laborer with anger. He raises his pitchfork and charges.

Despite the threat of cannons mounted atop the battlements,

the laborer joins a small party who fearlessly vault over the outer wall,

scramble across a narrow moat and rush up to the gates.

The laborer and the rest of the party repeatedly strike at the wrought iron chains of the drawbridge

until eventually they break and the drawbridge comes crashing down across the motion.

Bastille is now defenseless against the mob.

And as they rush in, they bring with them the spirit of revolution.

The storming of the Bastille, as this event is known,

represents the climactic high point of the French Revolution,

in which peasants and workers rose up against the ruling elites

and established France as a republic.

...