The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots, the French Protestants, that began in Paris during the wedding festivities of the Protestant Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois. Its immediate trigger was the assassination of the Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, after which the royal court, including King Charles IX and his mother Catherine de' Medici, approved the killing of Protestant leaders. Soon crowds in Paris turned on ordinary Protestants, and killings spread to other cities over the following weeks. Thousands were killed. The massacre renewed the French Wars of Religion and shocked Protestant Europe.
Before and after
- 7 October 1571Battle of Lepanto
- 27 December 1571Birth of Johannes Kepler
- 1572Wilhelmus
- 1572Birth of John Donne
- 24 August 1572St. Bartholomew's Day massacre
- 11 November 1572Tycho's Supernova
- 1574Construction of Selimiye Mosque
- from 12 July 1574 to 13 September 1574Conquest of Tunis
- from 1575 to 1675Dutch Golden Age
More in Society, economy & sport
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- 8 September 1636Founding of Harvard University
- 27 July 1694Founding of Bank of England
- 1698Founding of London Stock Exchange
- 1740Rise of Hasidic Judaism
- 12 January 1755Founding of Lomonosov Moscow State University
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 16th century.