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Women's March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles was a riot that took place during this first stage of the French Revolution. It was spontaneously organized by women in the marketplaces of Paris, on the morning of October 5, 1789. They complained over the high price and scant availability of bread, marching from Paris to Versailles. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, one of the basic charters of human liberties, containing the principles that inspired the French Revolution. Its 17 articles, adopted August 20, 1789, by France's National Assembly, served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1791. -
May 5, 1789 meeting with the 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. -
The Tennis Court Oath
In the Tennis Court Oath, the National Assembly swore not to stop meeting until France had a constitution. This commitment to imposing a constitution on France was a threat to the power of the monarch -
Storming of the Bastille
storming of the Bastille, iconic conflict of the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, fears that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France's newly constituted National Assembly led a crowd of Parisians to successfully besiege the Bastille, an old fortress that had been used since 1659 as a state prison -
Execution of King Louis XVI
Ultimately unwilling to cede his royal power to the Revolutionary government, Louis XVI was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. He was guillotined on January 21, 1793 -
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The Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror lasted for only nine months but it changed the French Revolution. Inspired by the misguided ideals of Maximilien Robespierre, all enemies of the state were executed. This caused mass fear and public killings, which ended only when Robespierre himself was put to death. -
Maximillian Robespierre's execution
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
The 1804 Napoleonic Code, which influenced civil law codes across the world, replaced the fragmented laws of pre-revolutionary France, recognizing the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law (although not for women in the same sense as for men), and the secular character of the state. -
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 British Army fought a war in the Iberian Peninsula against the invading forces of Napoleon's France. Aided by their Spanish and Portuguese allies, the British held off superior French numbers before winning a series of victories and driving them out. -
Napoleon and his men march on Russia
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign (French: Campagne de Russie) and in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (Russian: Оте́чественная война́ 1812 го́да, romanized: Otéchestvennaya voyná 1812 góda), was initiated by Napoleon with the aim of compelling the Russian Empire to comply with the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba
the British, Prussian, Russian and Austrian armies entered Paris and forced Napoleon to sign the act of abdication from the throne of France and on 11 April, the treaty of Fontainebleau sent him to Elba and gave him an annual pension of two million Francs, which in truth he was never paid -
Napoleon dies
Arsenic was present in Napoleon's hair before he arrived on Saint Helena and the findings at necropsy are consistent only with the diagnosis of ulcerating, regionally invasive, gastric carcinoma