10 Historically Significant Political Protests

Photo Credit: Jacques-Louis David, Le Serment du Jeu de paume, 1791

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A History of Uprisings

Political protests — both violent, peaceful and downright strange — have a rich past, with varied degrees of success in accomplishing what they originally set out to do.

The following historically significant political protests include a decisive event in the Civil Rights movement, two history-changing moments that occurred within one year and the medieval defiance of one man:

The Protestant Reformation

Photo Credit: Public domain

The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation began with the quietest and most orderly single protest in this list — the nailing to the door of a German church a treatise on the abuses of Catholicism by Martin Luther, in 1517. However, the movement that followed would ultimately spill blood and tear empires apart.

The Storming of the Bastille

Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre Houël

The Storming of the Bastille

This one act of July 14, 1789, has come to symbolize the entire French Revolution and indeed was a major catalyst to the 10-year-long rebellion against the crown. On that day, a throng of Parisians descended on the Bastille (long a symbol of royal authority and excess), beheaded its governor and overtook the prison.

Gandhi's Salt March

Photo Credit: Unknown photographer; 1930

Gandhi's Salt March

Another protest against British taxation sent Mahatma Gandhi on a 23-day, 240-mile journey to the coast of India to collect his own salt, which was illegal under crown laws. More than 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself, were incarcerated for participating in the salt march, but it ultimately turned the tide of world sympathy towards Indian, rather than British, interests.

The Boston Tea Party

Photo Credit: Library of Congress