Anniversary of Jan Palach's Death

On January 19th 1969, a few months after the Soviet invasion which followed the Prague Spring, a young student named Jan Palach committed suicide by setting himself on fire as a protest against the Soviet occupation of his country. Since then, every year on the anniversary of his death candles are lit on his grave in Olsanske Cemetery, and since the fall of communism, on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Wenceslas Square.