Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre

The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre began in Paris on the night of August 23-24, 1572, during the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots. The violence erupted in the aftermath of the marriage of the Protestant Henry of Navarre to Margaret of Valois, a union intended to reconcile the two faiths that had instead drawn many leading Huguenots to the capital.

The killings followed a failed attempt to assassinate the Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Fearing reprisals, the royal court, with the king's mother Catherine de' Medici a leading figure, authorized the elimination of Huguenot leaders. The targeted killings rapidly spiraled into a general slaughter as Catholic mobs turned on Protestants, and the violence spread from Paris to provincial cities over the following weeks.

Estimates of the dead vary widely, ranging from several thousand in Paris to many thousands more across France. News of the massacre was greeted with celebration in some Catholic quarters, and Pope Gregory XIII reportedly ordered commemorations. The atrocity deepened the bitterness of the religious wars and became a defining symbol of sectarian hatred in early modern Europe.