The Storming of the Bastille

A crowd of about a thousand Parisians attacked the royal fortress on the eastern edge of the city, looking less for prisoners than for the gunpowder stored inside. Fewer than a hundred attackers were killed; the governor was seized and beheaded in the street.

Only seven prisoners were found. The building was demolished within months and its stones sold as souvenirs. The outline of one tower is marked in a different paving in the square, and 14 July became the French national day.