The story of this place
Laid out by Charles IV in 1348 as a horse market, Wenceslas Square is really a 750-metre boulevard beneath a statue of St Wenceslas on horseback. In August 1968 Soviet tanks rolled up it to crush the reforms of the Prague Spring, and on 16 January 1969 the student Jan Palach set himself alight near the statue in protest, dying three days later; a bronze cross in the pavement marks the spot. Twenty years on, in November 1989, hundreds of thousands filled the square jingling their keys, and from a balcony Václav Havel and Alexander Dubček proclaimed the end of Communist rule. The square remains where Czechs gather to celebrate and to grieve.