Today is Bastille Day, the National Day of France. In France, it is referred to as la Fête Nationale (“National Holiday”), le quatorze juillet (The Fourteenth of July) or la fête du 14-Juillet (14th July Holiday). It commemorates the storming of the Bastille by the citizens of Paris on July 14, 1789.
After years of misrule by the Monarchy with increasing taxes and higher food prices, the French people had finally united in a popular uprising in an effort to take control of their own country.
On July 14th 1789, the people of Paris banded together to march on the Bastille. The Bastille was a 14th-century medieval fortress that became a state prison. It was used by the King to imprison his opponents, often without trial and was seen as representing the despotism of the regime of Louis the 16th.
In October, Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette were taken from the Palace of Versailles by 4,000 rioters and put under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace, in the centre of Paris.
After a failed attempt to flee to Austria in 1791, tensions about how to punish the King continued, culminating in the storming of the Tuileries by a new mob and the arrest of Louis XVI in 1792.
France was finally declared a Republic in September that year, ending the 800-year-old monarchy, and in January the following year, Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on the grounds of treason.
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On this day in 1979, Donna Summer scored her third No.1 US single with ‘Bad Girls.’ Her album of the same name also started a five-week run at No.1. The inspiration for her to write the song came after one of her assistants was offended by a police officer who thought she was a sex worker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d24XpO-Cn7E
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