French Revolution Timeline

  • Period: to

    French and Indian War

    The French and Indian War comprised the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War of 1756–63. It pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France.
  • Period: to

    Louis XVI

    Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the final weeks of his life.
  • Period: to

    Marie Antoinette

    Marie Antoinette was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.
  • Period: to

    Maximillian Robespierre

    Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and politician, one of the best known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
  • Period: to

    Napoleon Bonaparte

    Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars.
  • Tennis Court Oath

    the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath
  • Storming of the Bastille

    The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris.
  • Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens

    The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a document of the French Revolution and in the history of human civil rights.
  • Women's March on 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.
  • Period: to

    Reign of Terror

    The Reign of Terror, or The Terror, is the label given by some historians to a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established.
  • The End of the Revolution?

    He arrived in time to lead a coup against the Directory in 1799, eventually stepping up and naming himself “first consul”—effectively, the leader of France. With Napoleon at the helm, the Revolution ended, and France entered a fifteen-year period of military rule.
  • Battle of Trafalgar

    The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Battle of Austerlitz

    The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Period: to

    Invasion of Russia

    The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 and in France as the Russian Campaign, began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army
  • Period: to

    Napoleon Bonaparte's exile to Elba

    The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbon monarchs were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again.
  • Period: to

    Napoleon Bonaparte's exile to St. Helena

    The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbon monarchs were restored to power. ... The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June.
  • Waterloo

    The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.