Place de la Bastille, Paris, France

Paris, France — The Place de la Bastille and its July Column, on the site of the former Bastille prison (Bastille Saint-Antoine), which was stormed on the morning of July 14, 1789. Although revolutionaries discovered only seven prisoners inside, the storming of the Bastille fully ignited the French Revolution.

Before the Reign of Terror was over, 2,639 “enemies of the revolution” were executed by guillotine in Paris alone — most of them at another public square, now called the Place de la Concorde.

Bastille Day is celebrated on July 14 each year in France.

The Bastille prison, constructed in the late 1300s as a fortress protecting Porte Saint-Antoine on the eastern edge of Paris, was destroyed by November 1789.