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Jan Palach (August 11, 1948 - January 19, 1969) was a Czech student who committed suicide in political protest by self-immolation.
The Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was designed to crush the liberalising reforms Alexander Dubček's government during the Prague Spring. Palach died after setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague, Czechoslovakia on 16 January 1969 in protest.
The funeral of Palach turned into a major protest against the occupation, and a month later (on 25 February 1969) another student, Jan Zajic, burned himself to death in the same place, and in April of the same year Evzen Plocek did the same in the city of Jihlava.
His actions made Palach a national hero, and he is commemorated in Prague by a bronze cross embedded at the spot where he fell outside the National Museum, as well as a square named in his honour. The Czech astronomer Lubo Kohoutek, who left Czechoslovakia the following year, named an asteroid which had been discovered on August 22, 1969, after Jan Palach (1834 Palach).
Several later incidences of self-burning have been influenced by the example of Palach. In the spring of 2003, a total of six young Czechs burned themselves to death, notably the secondary school student Zdenek Adamec who burned himself on 6 March 2003 on almost the same spot in front of the National Museum, leaving a suicide note on a webpage explicitly referring to Palach and the other who had committed suicide in 1969.
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