Defenestration (from Modern Latin ) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an

incident Incident may refer to: * A property of a graph in graph theory * ''Incident'' (film), a 1948 film noir * Incident (festival), a cultural festival of The National Institute of Technology in Surathkal, Karnataka, India * Incident (Scientology), a ...

in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...

. This was done in "good Bohemian style", referring to the defenestration which had occurred in Prague's New Town Hall almost 200 years earlier (July 1419), which also on that occasion led to the Hussite war. The word comes from the New Latin '' de-'' (''down from'') and '' fenestra'' (window or opening). By extension, the term is also used to describe the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary.

Origin

The term originates from two incidents in history, both occurring in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. In 1419, seven town officials were thrown from the New Town Hall, precipitating the Hussite War. In 1618, two Imperial governors and their secretary were tossed from the Prague Castle, sparking the

. These incidents, particularly that in 1618, were referred to as the Defenestrations of Prague and gave rise to the term and the concept. The word itself is derived from New Latin ''defenestratio''; with ''dē'' meaning "out" + ''fenestra'' meaning "window" + ''-atio'' as a suffix indicating an action or process.

Notable cases

Historically, the word ''defenestration'' referred to an act of

political dissent Political dissent is a dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. Expressions of dissent may take forms from vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of violence.Bohemia and beyond. Some

Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

ascribed the survival of those defenestrated at Prague Castle in 1618 to divine intervention. Giorgio Vasari San Bartolomeo

* Around the 9th century BC, Queen Jezebel was defenestrated by her own eunuch servants, at the urging of Jehu, according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Westhide Abbey) that King John killed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by defenestration from the castle at Rouen,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, in 1203. * In 1378, the crafts and their leader Wouter van der Leyden occupied the Leuven city hall and seized the Leuven government. Most of the patricians left the city and fled to Aarschot. After negotiations between the parties, they agreed to share the government. The patricians did not accept this easily, as it caused them to lose their absolute power. In an attempt to regain absolute control, they had Wouter van der Leyden assassinated in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. Seeking revenge, the crafts handed over the patrician to a furious crowd. The crowd stormed the city hall and defenestrated the patricians. At least 15 patricians were killed during this defenestration of Leuven. * In 1383, Bishop Dom Martinho was defenestrated by the citizens of Lisbon, having been suspected of conspiring with the enemy when Lisbon was besieged by the

Castilians Castilians (Spanish: ''castellanos'') are those people who live in certain former areas of the historical Kingdom of Castile, but the region's exact limits are disputed. A broader definition is to consider as Castilians the population belonging ...

. * In 1419 Hussite mob defenestrated a judge, the burgomaster, and some thirteen members of the

town council A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities. Usage of the term varies under different jurisdictions. Republic of Ireland Town Councils in the Republic of Ireland were the second ti ...

New Town of Prague The New Town ( cs, Nové Město) is a quarter in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. New Town is the youngest and largest of the five independent (from the Middle Ages until 1784) towns that today comprise the historic center of modern Pra ...

. * In 1452, King James II of Scotland murdered

William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, 2nd Earl of Avondale (1425 – 22 February 1452) was a late Medieval Scottish nobleman, Lord of Galloway, and Lord of the Regality of Lauderdale, and the most powerful magnate in Southern Scotland. He was ki ...

, with his own hands and defenestrated him at Stirling Castle. * On April 26, 1478, after the failure of the " Pazzi conspiracy" to murder the ruler of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Lorenzo de' Medici Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492) was an Italian statesman, banker, ''de facto'' ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo ...

, Jacopo de' Pazzi was defenestrated. * In 1483,

's Old-Town portreeve and the bodies of seven murdered New-Town aldermen were defenestrated. * On May 16, 1562,

Adham Khan Adham Khan (1531 – 16 May 1562) was a general of Akbar. He was the younger son of Maham Anga, and thus, was the foster brother of Akbar. In his fourth regnal year, Akbar married him to Javeda Begum, the daughter of Baqi Khan Baqlani. Conquest ...

Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...

's general and foster brother, was defenestrated twice for murdering a rival general, Ataga Khan, who had been recently promoted by Akbar. Akbar was woken up in the tumult after the murder. He struck Adham Khan down personally with his fist and immediately ordered his defenestration by royal order. The first time, his legs were broken as a result of the fall from the ramparts of Agra Fort but he remained alive. Akbar, in a rare act of cruelty probably exacerbated by his anger at the loss of his favorite general, ordered his defenestration a second time, killing him. Adham Khan had wrongly counted on the influence of his mother and Akbar's wet nurse,

Maham Anga Maham Anga (died 1562) was the foster mother and chief wet nurse of the Mughal emperor Akbar. She was the political adviser of the teenage emperor and the de facto regent of the Mughal Empire from 1560 to 1562. Biography Maham Anga was Akbar's ...

, to save him as she was almost an unofficial regent in the days of Akbar's youth. Akbar personally informed Maham Anga of her son's death, to which she famously commented, "You have done well." She died 40 days later of acute depression. * In 1572,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

King Charles IX's friend, the

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

leader Gaspard de Coligny, was killed in accordance with the wishes of Charles' mother,

Catherine de' Medici Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...

. Charles had allegedly said "then kill them all that no man be left to reproach me". Thousands of Huguenots were killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre after soldiers attacked Coligny in his house, stabbed him, and defenestrated him. * In 1618, rebel Protestant leaders in Prague

defenestrate Defenestration (from Modern Latin ) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War. T ...

two Catholic Royal regents and their secretary, who survived the fall out of the windows of Prague Castle. * On the morning of December 1, 1640, in Lisbon, a group of supporters of the Duke of Braganza party found Miguel de Vasconcelos, the hated Portuguese Secretary of State of the Habsburg Philip III, hidden in a closet, killed him and defenestrated him. His corpse was left to the public outrage. * On June 27, 1844,

Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, h ...

, founder of the

Latter Day Saint movement The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...

, was shot and pushed out of one of the windows of the

Carthage Jail Carthage Jail is a historic building in Carthage, Illinois, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It was built in 1839 and is best known as the location of the 1844 killing of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint mov ...

in Carthage, Illinois while attempting to escape a mob. * On June 11, 1903, a group of Serbian army officers murdered and defenestrated King Alexander and

Queen Draga Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

. * In 1922, Italian politician and writer Gabriele d'Annunzio was temporarily crippled after falling from a window, possibly pushed by a follower of Benito Mussolini. * In March to April 1932, Ivanovo region of

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, due to ration cuts and labor intensification measures, strikes and spontaneous assemblies broke out. Ten thousand demonstrators ransacked the party and police buildings with slogans like "Toss the Communists . . . out the window." * On March 10, 1948, the Czechoslovakian minister of foreign affairs Jan Masaryk was found dead, in his pyjamas, in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry below his bathroom window. The initial investigation stated that he committed suicide by jumping out of the window, although some believe that he was murdered by the ascendant Communists. A 2004 police investigation into his death concluded that, contrary to the initial ruling, he did not commit suicide, but was defenestrated, most likely by Czechoslovak Communists and their Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

advisers for his opposition to the February 1948 Communist putsch. * On November 28, 1953, the U.S. biological warfare specialist Frank Olson died after a fall from a hotel window that has been suggested to have been an assassination by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

. * In 1962, Communist Party of Spain member

Julián Grimau Julián Grimau García (18 February 1911 – 20 April 1963) was a Spanish politician, member of the Communist Party of Spain, executed during Francisco Franco's Francoist State. Political activities Initially active in the Federal Republican P ...

was seemingly tortured and then defenestrated from the premises of the Dirección General de Seguridad in Madrid suffering fractures to the wrists and serious skull injuries, prior to his execution in 1963. * On April 15, 1966, two suspects in the so-called Bathroom Coup in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, Corporal Tilekawardene and L. V. Podiappuhamy (otherwise known as Dodampe Mudalali), were said by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to have jumped to their deaths from the fourth floor of the CID building in the Fort. At the inquest, following receipt of new evidence, the magistrate altered the verdict of suicide to one of culpable homicide. The remainder of the suspects were acquitted. * In 1968, the son of China's future paramount leader

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. Aft ...

, Deng Pufang, was thrown from a window by Red Guards during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

. * In 1969, Italian Anarchist

Giuseppe Pinelli Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli (21 October 1928 – 15 December 1969) was an Italian railroad worker and anarchist, who died while being detained by Italian police in 1969. Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named Ponte d ...

was seen falling to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station after being arrested because of claims of his involvement in the Piazza Fontana bombing, of which he was later cleared. * In 1970, Turkish

idealist In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...

student Ertuğrul Dursun Önkuzu was defenestrated from the third floor of a school by a group of

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

students in Ankara. * In 1977, as a result of political backlash against her son Fela Kuti's album '' Zombie'', Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was thrown from a second-story window during a military raid by one thousand Nigerian soldiers on Kuti's compound, the

Kalakuta Republic Kalakuta Republic was the name musician and political activist Fela Kuti gave to the communal compound that housed his family, band members, and recording studio. Located at 14 Agege Motor Road, Idi-Oro, Mushin, Lagos, Nigeria, it had a free heal ...

. The injuries sustained from the fall led Ransome-Kuti to lapse into a coma; she would remain in a coma for more than a year, and eventually succumb to her injuries on 13 April 1978. Ransome-Kuti's death would be commemorated in her son's protest song "Coffin for Head of State". * The 2000 Ramallah lynching included throwing the (already-dead) body of either Vadim Nurzhitz or Yossi Avrahami out of a second-floor window, after those two Israeli soldiers had been lynched. * On March 2, 2007,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n investigative journalist

Ivan Safronov Ivan Ivanovich Safronov (russian: Иван Иванович Сафронов) (16 January 1956 – 2 March 2007) was a Russian journalist and columnist who covered military affairs for the daily newspaper ''Kommersant''. He died after falling ...

, who was researching the Kremlin's covert arms deals, fell to his death from a fifth floor window. Friends and colleagues discounted suicide as a reason, and an investigation was opened looking into possible "incitement to suicide". * In 2007 in Gaza, gunmen allegedly affiliated with

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni- Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qas ...

killed a Fatah supporter by defenestration, an act repeated the next day when a Hamas supporter was defenestrated by alleged supporters of Fatah. * In 2017, retired French physician and teacher Sarah Halimi was killed in an attack on her home near Paris that ended with her being pushed from a third-floor window. Her death was widely perceived as an example of

Islamist terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Incidents and fatalities f ...

and

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. Her assailant was ruled to be not criminally responsible due to having committed the act in a psychotic episode brought on by his heavy use of

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...

. * On September 1, 2022, Ravil Maganov, a Russian businessman who had criticized the country's

invasion of Ukraine The territory of present-day Ukraine has been invaded or occupied a number of times throughout its history. List See also *List of invasions * List of wars involving Ukraine References {{Europe topic, List of wars involving, title=List ...

, died after falling from a window of a hospital in Moscow on the same day the hospital was visited by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some people who knew Maganov well said his death was unlikely to have been a suicide, and some media hypothesized a connection with various other mysterious deaths of Russian businessmen that had occurred in recent months.

Notable autodefenestrations

''Autodefenestration'' (or ''self-defenestration'') is the term used for the act of jumping, propelling oneself, or causing oneself to fall, out of a window. * In the Acts of the Apostles in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

, the accidental autodefenestration of a young man of Troas named

Eutychus __NOTOC__ Eutychus ( el, Εὔτυχος) was a young man (or a youth) of Troas tended to by St. Paul. Eutychus fell asleep due to the long nature of the discourse Paul was giving, fell from a window out of the three-story building, and died. Pau ...

is recorded. The Apostle Paul was travelling to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and had stopped for seven days in Troas. While Paul was preaching in a third-story room late on a Sunday night to the local assembly of Christian believers, Eutychus drifted off to sleep and fell out of the window in which he was sitting. The text indicates that Eutychus did not survive but was brought back to life after Paul embraced him. () *In December 1840,

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

and four other Illinois legislators jumped out of a window in a political maneuver designed to prevent a quorum on a vote that would have eliminated the Illinois State Bank. *During the

Revolutions of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europ ...

, an agitated crowd forced their way into the town hall in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

and two city councillors panicked and jumped out of the window; one of them broke both his legs. The event went down in the city's history as the "Cologne Defenestration". * In 1991, British informer Martin McGartland was abducted by members of the

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish re ...

. As he waited to be interrogated, McGartland escaped the IRA by jumping from a third floor window in a Twinbrook flat where he had been taken for interrogation following his abduction, and survived the fall. * On July 9, 1993, the prominent

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

attorney

Garry Hoy 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 articl ...

fell from a window in a playful attempt to demonstrate to a group of new legal interns that the windows of the city's Toronto-Dominion Centre were effectively unbreakable. He had performed the same stunt on several previous occasions – dramatically slamming his body against the window – but this time it popped out of its frame and he fell to his death. The accident was later commemorated for its unusual nature by a 1996

Darwin Award The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor that originated in Usenet newsgroup discussions around 1985. They recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or b ...

and has been re-enacted in several films and television shows. *In 1995, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze jumped from his Paris apartment to his death. *In 1999, popular German Schlager singer Rex Gildo committed suicide by jumping out of the window of his apartment building. *In 2001, at least 104 people jumped out of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

In popular culture

* In his poem ''Defenestration'', R. P. Lister wrote with amusement about the creation of so exalted a word for so basic a concept. The poem narrates the thoughts of a philosopher undergoing defenestration. As he falls, the philosopher considers why there should be a particular word for the experience, when many equally simple concepts do not have specific names. In an evidently ironic commentary on the word, Lister has the philosopher summarize his thoughts with, "I concluded that the incidence of logodaedaly was purely

adventitious Important structures in plant development are buds, shoots, roots, leaves, and flowers; plants produce these tissues and structures throughout their life from meristems located at the tips of organs, or between mature tissues. Thus, a living plant a ...

." * There is a range of hacker witticisms referring to "defenestration". For example, the term is sometimes used humorously among

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

users to describe the act of removing

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

from a computer.

References

External links

*{{Wiktionary-inline, defenestration Windows Homicide Falling Execution methods Suicide methods