Bastille Day and the Bastille
Bastille Day is a celebration observed in France and a number of other countries. It is known as the national day of the republic, and it commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, by citizens angry at being ruled by an aristocratic class.
The French Revolution was an era in which people across Europe began to question inherited social order and identify with their own country instead of feudal elites or foreign powers. The French Revolution was kicked off by middle-class men and women who hated the way they were treated under an aristocracy that had been established centuries earlier.
As part of their effort to dismantle traditional power structures, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison in Paris on July 14, 1789. They freed many prisoners from inside and set them free on the streets to join as part of a larger rebellion against aristocracy. There are several myths about why exactly it’s named after this one prison in particular. One story says that when you destroy everything around you when you storm just one thing then you’re left with nothing because there’s no more space left for anything else to grow again. Another theory says that since commoners were not allowed into prisons until this day, anyone who breaks out is considered a hero because he is no longer confined within walls like a common criminal should be.