Jan Palach & 1834 Palach Asteroid - Prague, Czech Republic
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ToRo61
N 50° 05.339 E 014° 24.953
33U E 458215 N 5548687
Jan Palach (11 August 1948 – 19 January 1969) was a Czech student of history and political economy at Charles University and anti-Soviet protester.
Waymark Code: WMJEQX
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 11/09/2013
Views: 63
Jan Palach committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest against the end of the Prague Spring resulting from the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies.
In August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the liberalising reforms of Alexander Dubcek's government during what was known as the Prague Spring. Prague-born Palach decided to sacrifice himself in protest of the invasion and set himself on fire, in Wenceslas Square, on 16 January 1969. According to a letter he sent to several public figures, an entire clandestine resistance organization had been established with the purpose of practicing self-immolation until their demands were met; however, it seems that such a group never existed. The demands declared in the letter were the abolition of censorship and a halt to the distribution of Zpráva, the official newspaper of the Soviet occupying forces. In addition, the letter called for the Czech and the Slovak peoples to go on a general strike in support of these demands.[2] An earlier draft of the letter that Palach wrote also called for the resignation of a number of pro-Soviet politicians, but that demand did not make it into the final version, which included the remark that "our demands are not extreme, on the contrary". Palach died from his burns several days after his act, at the hospital.
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1834 Palach Asteroid is a main-belt asteroid.
Discovered by: Luboš Kohoutek
Date of discovery: August 22, 1969
Place of discovery: Bergedorf Observatory