A socialist revolution led by Kurt Eisner overthrows the Wittelsbach dynasty in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany.

On the afternoon of 7 November 1918, the first anniversary of the Russian revolution, Kurt Eisner, a politician  of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany(USPD) addressed a crowd, estimated to have been about 60,000, on the Theresienwiese (current site of the Oktoberfest).

He demanded an immediate peace, an 8-hour workday, relief for the unemployed, abdication of the Bavarian king, King Ludwig III, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, and proposed the formation of workers' and soldiers' councils. The crowd marched to the army barracks and won over most of the soldiers to the side of the revolution. That night, the King went into exile. The next day, Eisner declared Bavaria a "free state" – a declaration which overthrew the monarchy of the Wittelsbach dynasty which had ruled for over 700 years, and Eisner became Minister-President of Bavaria. Though he advocated a "socialist republic", he distanced himself from the Russian Bolsheviks, declaring that his government would protect property rights. For a few days, the Munich economist Lujo Brentano served as People's Commissar for Trade (Volkskommissar für Handel).

Eisner's Independent Social Democrats were defeated in the January 1919 election, coming in sixth.

On 21 February 1919, as he was on his way to parliament to announce his resignation, he was shot dead by the right-wing nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, who had been rejected from membership in the Thule Society because of Jewish ancestry on his mother's side. This assassination caused unrest and lawlessness in Bavaria, and the news of a left-wing revolution in Hungary encouraged communists and anarchists to seize power