On this day in 1989, November 24, in Prague, the entire top leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia resigned.
The causes and events leading to that resignation are many; but among them are an extremely large peaceful, popular uprising.
Four days earlier, on November 20, a crowd of of 200,000 protesting Czechs had swelled to 500,000. In that high-energy environment, a bold, freedom-loving playwright, soon-to-become President, Vaclav Havel, addressed the crowd, while standing on this balcony: