Defenestration: A Historical Perspective

[IbisNibs]

Or an historical perspective, depending on your pronunciation.

A rather long but nicely illustrated article from the Public Domain Review, all about the tradition of defenestration in the Czech city of Prague, starting from before it was even a Czech city:
"Windows Onto History: The Defenestrations of Prague (1419–1997)"
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/windows-onto-history/?utm_source=newsletter

"Throwing people out of windows (or defenestrating them, as the Latin has it) is an act imbued with longstanding political significance in Prague. From the Hussite revolt in the late Middle Ages through the Thirty Years’ War to modern instances of “autodefenestration”, Thom Sliwowski finds a national shibboleth imbued with ritual efficacy."

I envision this thread as a place where one can post one's favorite stories of bad habits leading to people falling out of windows, by accident or by design, and any bad puns that may arise like the puff of dirt caused by falling bodies making impact with immovable surfaces. Thoughtful remarks also welcome, since this isn't a very pretty way to go, especially if it wasn't one's intention to dive through a window frame.

 

[Steven]

I was quite shocked when, in Braveheart, the evil king bloke bunged the fey favourite out of the castle window. Unusally for Braveheart, this wasn't historically accurate.

 

[Ermintruder]

Unusally for Braveheart, this wasn't historically accurate.

Please exercise lots of caution with this generously-imprecise critique: as a movie it is highly-entertaining, but far from being accurate in all sorts of really-crucial ways (see
https://scotlands-stories.com/braveheart-historical-check/).

For just one unsafe example, the Scots were depicted as 'painted Picts'- that was a behaviour from at least a thousand years before the era of Wallace, and is as anachronistic as recreating the D-Day landings in 1944 with archers & suits of armour.

However, I must admit that I'd always thought 'defenestration' was a Latinate term that euphemistically-referred to the breaking of windows (cf 'Krystallnacht' ca 1938), rather than the forcible ejection of someone from them, but it appears I'm almost totally-wrong about that:

https://english.stackexchange.com/q...ow-someone-out-a-window-and-not-remove-a-wind

(Note to self & the universe: hereinafter follows a term that deserves deeper delving intowhich #Logodaedaly ...this reminds me of when you drive past a really-interesting car accident on the way to work, but have neither the time nor the opportunity to gaze or investigate...I need to be in three different places half an hour ago :-/ )

 

[Steven]

Clearly my sarcasm needs work!

 

[Yithian]

Must we go so wildly off topic with Posts No. 2 & 3?

And I'd ask in advance that we don't retread the ground covered by out discussion of contemporary Russian political assassinations.

 

[Erinaceus]

You don't have to be thrown out. Self-defenestration happens too.

Garry Hoy (January 28, 1954 – July 9, 1993) was a Canadian lawyer who died when he fell from the 24th floor of his office building at the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In an attempt to prove to a group of prospective articling students that the building's glass windows were unbreakable, he threw himself against the glass. The glass did not break when he hit it, but the window frame gave way and Hoy fell to his death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Garry_Hoy