Bebelplatz was designed in the eighteenth century as a center for the arts and science. The square, which is located at the Unter den Linden boulevard, is lined with a number of grand buildings.When Frederick II became ruler of Prussia in 1740, this patron of the arts had hopes of creating an area that attested to his great political power. Plans for this square included an opera house, an academy, and a royal palace. The area became known as Frederick's Forum and later Opernplatz, as the opera house was the only part of the plan that was completed before the king passed away. It wasn't until 1947 that the area became known as Bebelplatz, named for August Bebel, a leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the nineteenth century.Unfortunately, Bebelplatz is sometimes best known for what happened there on May 10, 1933. On that date, the Nazi minister for propaganda and public enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels, organized a nationwide book burning, with more than 20,000 books by Jews, Communists, and Pacifists burned on a pyre in the middle of the Bebelplatz