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Meeting with the Estates-General.
Who: a representative assembly in pre-revolutionary France
What: to address the country's political and financial instability
Where: Menus-Plaisirs building in Versailles, France
Why: The meeting was the first event of the French Revolution and is considered a significant moment in history. -
Tennis Court Oath.
Who: members of the French Third Estate
What: never to stop meeting until a constitution had been established.
Where: Tennis room at the Palace of Versailles
Why: Their vow "not to separate and to reassemble wherever necessary until the Constitution of the kingdom is established" -
Storming of the Bastille.
Who: The French
What: revolutionary insurgents attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armoury, fortress and political prison
Where: Paris, France
Why: because it was a symbol of the oppressive monarchy and royal power, and the crowd, fueled by widespread discontent, wanted to access the weapons stored there, believing the king was planning to use force against the burgeoning revolutionary movement -
Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Who: France's National Constituent Assembly
What: Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression
Where: Paris, France
Why: the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a significant impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide. -
Women's March of Versailles.
Who: Women and few men
What: a riot that took place during this first stage of the French Revolution.
Where: Versailles, France
Why: sparked by women in Paris's marketplaces who were protesting the high price and scarcity of bread -
Execution of King Louis XVI.
Who: King Louis XVL
What: King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine
Where: Place de la Concorde, Paris, France
Why: he was found guilty of treason by the National Convention -
Period: to
Reign of Terror.
Who: France's Revolutionary
What: climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution
Where: French First Republic
Why: widespread fear of counter-revolutionary forces, political instability within the revolutionary government, and the radical Jacobin leadership -
Maximillian Robespierre's execution.
Who: Maximilien Robespierre
What: Maximilien Robespierre was executed by guillotine
Where: Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde) in Paris
Why: for his role in the Reign of Terror and for acting as a dictator -
Napoleonic Code is established.
Who: Napoleon Bonaparte
What: code was a unified legal system that replaced the fragmented laws of pre-revolutionary France
Where: in areas under French control, including Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of Germany and Italy, Geneva, and Monaco
Why: to modernize France's legal system -
Napoleon Crowns himself emperor.
Who: Napoleon
What: crowned himself emperor
Where: Notre-Dame Cathedral
Why: Prestige, Reconciliation, Religion, symbolism -
Period: to
Peninsular War.
Who: the British Army & Napoleon's France
What: military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula
Where: Spain, France, Iberian Peninsula, Southern France
Why: Frustrated by Portugal's defiance of Napoleon Continental Blockade against trade with Great Britain -
Napoleon and his men march on Russia.
Who: Napoleon and his men
What: march on Russia
Where: Prussian-Russian border near Kovno
Why: to defeat the Imperial Russian Army and compel Czar Alexander I to rejoin to the Continental System -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba.
Who: Napoleon Bonaparte
What: exiled after being forced to abdicate the French throne
Where: to the island of Elba
Why: after his defeat in the War of the Sixth Coalition and the fall of Paris -
Napoleon dies.
Who: Napoleon
What: Napoleon died at 51 yrs old
Where: Longwood House, Longwood, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Why: from stomach cancer