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Palace of Versailles built
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 18 kilometres west of Paris, in the Yvelines Department of the Île-de-France region in France. -
When King Louis moved the capital of France from Paris to Versailles
The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682. By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to extract more control of the government from the nobility and to distance himself from the population of Paris. -
When King Louis XVI married Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna on 2 November 1755, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa. Her marriage with the future Louis XVI, celebrated in the Royal Chapel at Versailles on 16 May 1770, was partly the work of the Duke de Choiseul. -
Bastille is Stormed
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. -
Period: to
French Revolution
The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval that lasted from 1789 to 1799. It was a response to economic hardship, corruption, and inequality in France. The revolution ended the monarchy, feudalism, and established a republic. -
Tennis Court Oath
It was a vow made by representatives of the Third Estate to not separate until a constitution was established for France. The oath was taken in the Real Tennis Room in Versailles, France. -
When The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was written
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into existence in the summer of 1789, born of an idea of the Constituent Assembly, which was formed by the assembly of the Estates General to draft a new Constitution, and precede it with a declaration of principles. There were many proposals. -
Women’s March on Versailles
The crowd besieged the palace and, in a dramatic and violent confrontation, successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The next day, the crowd forced the king and his family to return with them to Paris. -
King Louis XVI is executed
Louis, now called Citizen Capet, appeared twice before the Convention, but on January 18, 1793, he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. -
The Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror, or simply the Terror (la Terreur), was a climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution (1789-99), which saw the public executions and mass killings of thousands of counter-revolutionary 'suspects' between September 1793 and July 1794. -
Napoleon launches a Coup d'Etat on the weak and; corrupt Directory.
Coup of 18–19 Brumaire, (November 9–10, 1799), coup d'état that overthrew the system of government under the Directory in France and substituted the Consulate, making way for the despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. The event is often viewed as the effective end of the French Revolution. -
Creation of the Napoleonic Code
Enacted on March 21, 1804, the resulting Civil Code of France marked the first major revision and reorganization of laws since the Roman era. The Civil Code (renamed the Code Napoleon in 1807) addressed mainly matters relating to property and families. -
Napoleon crowns himself emperor.
Napoleon I and his wife Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress of the French on Sunday, December 2, 1804 (11 Frimaire, Year XIII according to the French Republican calendar, commonly used at the time in France), at Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris. -
Napoleon as Emperor
In May 1804, he became Emperor of the French under the name of Napoleon I, and was the architect of France's recovery following the Revolution before setting out to conquer Europe, which led to his downfall. -
Defeat in Russian Campaign
The only major battle of the campaign, at Borodino on 7 September 1812, ended with a territorial gain for Napoleon but at a very high cost. Napoleon's army eventually reached Moscow, abandoned and destroyed by the Russian army based on the scorched-earth policy. -
When he was exiled
Napoleon's exile on Elba—an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea just 10 miles from the Italian mainland—lasted from May 1814 to March 1815. -
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 between Napoleon's French Army and a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. The decisive battle of its age, it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever.