1) Today is the 19th anniversary of the start of the bloodless overthrow of the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia back in the Fall of 1989. The six-week period between November 17 and December 29, 1989, is known as the "Velvet Revolution". Today is a national holiday as well.
2) And as of today, Czechs will be able to travel to the United States without a visa from this date forward. Instead of applying for a visa, tourists will only need a biometric passport and a travel authorization, which they will receive for free after submitting their personal and travel details to the US embassy through the web-based Electronic System for Travel Authorization. Students and guest workers will still need a visa.
The Velvet Revolution started on November 17, 1989 - fifty years to the day that Czech students had held a demonstration to protest the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. On this anniversary back in 1989, students in the capital city of Prague were again protesting an oppressive regime.
The protest began as a legal rally to commemorate the death of Jan Opletal, but turned instead into a demonstration demanding democratic reforms. Riot police stopped the students (who were making their way from the Czech National Cemetery at Vysehrad to Wenceslas Square) halfway in their march, in Narodni trida. After a stand-off in which the students offered flowers to the riot police and showed no resistance, the police began beating the young demonstrators with night sticks. In all, at least 167 people were injured. In a severe blow to the communists' morale, a number of workers' unions immediately joined the students' cause.
A general strike was called on November 27, where a mass demonstration of 750,000 people took place in Letna Park in Prague. Soon afterwards that the regime fall. A new government was initiated on 10 December 1989 and the beginning of a Free Country.
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