jul 14, 1789 - The Storming of the Bastille

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The Bastille represented the center of royal authority in Paris, which is why the revolutionaries chose to liberate it in 1789 to add fuel to their rapidly growing movement. The angry crowd of Parisian citizens, now under the control of the Bourgeois Militia of Paris, stormed the Bastille armed with muskets and other weapons and demanded the surrender of the prison, which at this point held only 7 prisoners due to a recent evacuation because of lack of funding. The overthrow of the Bastille acted as a spark of hope to the revolutionary movement, and is still a national holiday celebrated in France today.