Charles Square

This guide to Charles Square in Prague opens on 30 July 1419, when a crowd led by the priest Jan Zelivsky dragged town councilmen to a window of the New Town Hall over the fate of jailed followers of the reformer Jan Hus. It traces how that single afternoon touched off the Hussite Wars, then reaches back to the square's earlier life as Emperor Charles the Fourth's sprawling cattle market, complete with a merchants' measuring stick fixed into the town hall tower. Look for the statues of poets and naturalists scattered through the park today.