On November 17, Slovakia and the Czech Republic remember 25 years since the Velvet Revolution. Eight days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a student protest against communist rule was violently put down in Prague. The following day, theaters went on strike and students occupied university campuses. Within days hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets, and by the end of the month the Communist Party agreed to hold free elections. In December, dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president and democracy was restored.
On November 21, more than 200,000 demonstrators took
to the streets of Prague for a fifth consecutive day of protests.
On November 26, the protests had to move to a large park to accommodate the numbers. Half a million people came to listen to speeches from Havel and other opposition leaders.
.Huge crowds continued to gather after the communists backed down and agreed to free elections. At this protest, on Wenceslas Square on December 19, 1989, a banner reads "Havel na Hrad" (Havel to the Castle), a popular slogan of the time in support of Havel becoming president.
O Czechoslovakia turn out by the thousands in November 1989 to protest the Communist regime led by General Secretary Miloš Jakeš. Just one month later the regime had toppled peacefully, Václav Havel was elected as the country's first democratic president.
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