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May 5th, 1789 Meeting with Estates General
This assembly was composed of three estates – the clergy, nobility and commoners – who had the power to decide on the levying of new taxes and to undertake reforms in the country. The opening of the Estates General, on 5 May 1789 in Versailles, also marked the start of the French Revolution. -
Tennis Court Oath
On June 20, 1789, the Tennis Court Oath was taken. There, the men of the National Assembly swore an oath never to stop meeting until a constitution had been established. -
Storming of the Bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, when revolutionary insurgents attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armoury, fortress and political prison known as the Bastille. After four hours of fighting and 94 deaths the insurgents were able to enter the Bastille. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. -
Women's March of Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. -
Execution of King Louis XVI
Louis XVI, former king of France since the abolition of the monarchy, was publicly executed by beheading by guillotine on 21 January 1793 during the French Revolution and the French First Republic at the Place de la Révolution in Paris. -
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
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Maximillian Robespierre's execution
On July 27, 1794, Robespierre and a number of his followers were arrested at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The next day Robespierre and 21 of his followers were taken to the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde), where they were executed by guillotine before a cheering crowd. -
Napoleonic Code is Established
Napoleonic Code, French civil code enacted on March 21, 1804, and still extant, with revisions. It was the main influence on the 19th-century civil codes of most countries of continental Europe and Latin America. -
Napoleon Crowns himself Emperor
On the 2nd of December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris. According to legend, during the coronation he snatched the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowned himself, thus displaying his rejection of the authority of the Pontiff. -
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Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence. -
Napoleon and his men March on Russia
On June 24, 1812, the Grande Armée, led by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, crossed the Neman River, invading Russia from present-day Poland. The result was a disaster for the French. The Russian army refused to engage with Napoleon's Grande Armée of more than 500,000 European troops. -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba
A very charismatic commander and leader, Napoleon suffered heavy defeats as well as victories, such as the disastrous Russian campaign and the defeat at Leipzig, and these led him to be exiled to the gem of the Tuscan Archipelago. -
Napoleon dies
Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815.