Heydrich Assassinated: Holocaust Architect Dies in Prague
Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi official assassinated during World War II, died on June 4, 1942, from septicemia caused by wounds sustained in Operation Anthropoid eight days earlier. Czech and Slovak soldiers Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, trained by British SOE, had ambushed Heydrich's open-top Mercedes in Prague. Gabcik's Sten gun jammed; Kubis threw a modified anti-tank grenade that embedded horsehair upholstery fragments in Heydrich's spleen. Heydrich initially appeared to recover but died when the wound became infected. The Nazi reprisal was savage: the village of Lidice was razed, its 173 men executed, its women sent to Ravensbruck, and its children gassed at Chelmno. The village of Lezaky was similarly destroyed. The assassins were betrayed by a fellow agent and died in a firefight at a Prague church.
June 4, 1942
84 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on June 4
Chinese astronomers already knew it was coming. They'd tracked the sun for generations, mapped its moods, built careers on predicting its behavior. But when the…
Henry III was 22 years old when he inherited an empire stretching from Denmark to southern Italy — and he actually made it work. His father Conrad II left him a…
The world's first food monopoly wasn't wine. Wasn't bread. It was mold. King Charles VI handed the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon exclusive rights to ripen th…
Villagers from Kent and Sussex stormed Bayham Abbey and occupied it for a week, protesting Cardinal Wolsey's order to dissolve the monastery and redirect its we…
Lightning hit St Paul's steeple on a June afternoon and within hours, 500 years of medieval stonework were gone. The blaze burned so hot that molten lead from t…
The colony was gone before anyone could explain it. Raleigh never actually set foot on Roanoke Island — he funded the 1584 expedition but stayed in England, sen…
Talk to History
Have a conversation with historical figures who witnessed this era. Ask questions, explore perspectives, and bring history to life.