1572 St. Bartholomew's Night

445 years ago, on the night of August 24, 1572, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, in Paris there was a massacre of the Huguenots by Catholics. The Huguenots gathered in the capital for the wedding of their leader Henry of Navarre with Margarita of Valois, the sister of King Charles IX, who was to become a sign of reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics. However, Charles and his mother Catherine de Medici organized the extermination of the Huguenots.

Up to 5,000 people were killed, including the military leader of the Huguenots, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, and other prominent Protestants. Another 6,000 Huguenots were massacred in other French cities in the next two months. Henry of Navarre was saved by his wife, but was forced to convert to Catholicism. After Bartholomew's Night, the religious wars in France flared up again, and about 200,000 Protestants fled the country.