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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. -
Tennis Court Oath
The oath was a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarchy. -
Storming of the Bastille
A state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility. The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. -
Execution of King Louis XVI
King Louis XVI of France was executed on the Place de la Revolution -
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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' -
Maximillien Robespierre's execution
As the leading member of the Committee of Public Safety from 1793, Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the Revolution. The day after his arrest, Robespierre and 21 of his followers were guillotined before a cheering mob in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. -
Napoleonic Code is established
The resulting Civil Code of France marked the first major revision and reorganization of laws since the Roman era. -
Napoleon Crowns himself emperor
By crowning himself, Napoleon symbolically showed that he would not be controlled by Rome or submit to any power other than himself. -
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Peninsular War
Between 1808 and 1814, the British Army fought a war in the Iberian Peninsula against the invading forces of Napoleon's France. -
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Napoleon and his men march on Russia
Through a series of long forced marches, Napoleon pushed his army of almost half a million people rapidly through Western Russia, now Belarus, in an attempt to destroy the separated Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration who amounted to around 180,000–220,000 at that time. -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba
After Napoleon Bonaparte's disastrous campaign in Russia ended in defeat, he was forced into exile on Elba. -
Napoleon dies
The physicians who conducted Napoleon's autopsy, on May 6, 1821, concluded that his death was from stomach cancer, exacerbated by bleeding gastric ulcers, after a huge dose of calomel – a compound containing mercury that was used as a medicine – was administered to him on the day before he died.