(Somebody either cut all their world history classes or slept through them...)

Bastille Day is France's "Independence Day"...their equivalent to our July 4. The Bastille was a prison, really awful where political prisoners as well as criminals were held It was on this date in 1789 that it was overrun and brought down by revolutionaries who hated the French monarchy. The French national anthem "La Marseillaise" was their battle anthem.