The social and economic situation in the Austrian Empire became precarious in the second half of the 1840s. A large part of the student body as well as some professors and doctors at Vienna University were major players in the March Revolution of 1848. A petition with the student demands was handed over to the Emperor on 12 March 1848. They demanded freedom of the press, reform of higher education with freedom of teaching and learning, equal civic rights for members of all denominations, publicity and orality of court proceedings and the creation of a general representation of the people.
