First, one needs to know what "defenestration" is. What is defenestration? Webster defines defenestration:
(de·fen·es·tra·tion; Pronunciation: dE-"fe-n&-'strA-sh&n; Function: noun; Etymology: de- + Latin fenestra window; Date: 1620): a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
- de·fen·es·trate /dE-'fe-n&-"strAt/ transitive verb. The Real-Time Encyclopedia describes defenestration is "the traditional Czechoslovakian method of assassinating prime ministers." So, it appears that people would be killed by being pushed out a window. And it seems very popular among the Czechs.
The first defenestration occured in 1419 with the First Defenestration of Prague. In this defenestration Hussites threw seven members of the Czech Town Council out of Prague's New Town Hall window. The members of the council may have survived were it not for the Hussites wielding pikes below the window. It is said that King Wenceslas IV had an apoplectic fit and died of a heart attack when the defenestration was reported to him.
The Second Defenestration of Prague occured in 1618. In this second defenestration, two vice-regents of the Austrian monarch and some governors of the Czech lands were thrown out of a tower window at Prague Castle. They were not killed, however. They fell onto a pile of garbage (mostly straw) which had accumulated in the castle moat. Obviously the irate group involved in this defenestration didn't plan as well as their Hussite forbears.
But this second defenestration is noteworthy because it is pointed out as the igniter of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The Bohemian nobility was in more or less open revolt against the Emperor. At a meeting of the Bohemian Estates at the Hrdcany Castle in Prague on 23 May 1618, the assembled Bohemian nobles took the two Imperial governors present at the meeting (Wilhelm Graf Slavata and Jaroslav Borzita Graf von Martinicz) and threw them out of a window of the castle and into a ditch.
Neither man was seriously injured as a result of being defenestrated and lines of descent from both men to several members of European Royalty have been documented. One could say they landed on their feet.
The defenestrators were four members of the Estate of Lords and one knight. History names these defenestrators as Wilhelm von Lobkowitz, Albrect Smiricky, Ulrich Kinsky, Litwin von Rican and Paul Kaplir. They forcibly laid hands on the count of Martinitz (Jaroslav Borzita Graf von Martinicz), held him down, and led him to an open window while shouting: "Now we will take our just revenge on our religious enemies."
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