From the late 1940s to 1989, March 15, the anniversary of the Revolution of 1848, was not a national holiday in Hungary. Beginning in the 1970s young people held spontaneous commemorations at various sites in Budapest, related to 1848. On the morning of March 15, 1988, fifteen thousand people demonstrated in Budapest. The previous evening and in the early hours of the 15th police took several prominent members of the Hungarian opposition into “preventive” custody. On the pedestal of the statue of Lajos Kossuth behind the nation’s Parliament, Gáspár Miklós Tamás conjured the spirit of the Revolution of 1956. A speech written by Gábor Demszky, taken into custody the night before, was read by his wife Róza Hodosán. Several participants were arrested during the course of the day.