Having taken place in 1572, the Saint Barholomew's Day massacre was a targeted group of assassinations that was then followed by a bout of Roman Catholic mob violence. The massacre began two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny who was a political and military leader of the Huguenots. The mob violence that ensued after the original massacre was also aimed at the Huguenots. Catherine de' Medici is thought of as the person who initiated the massacre to begin with.