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Period: 1492 to
Modern History
Modern Age is the third of the historical periods into which world history is conventionally divided, between the 15th and 18th centuries. Chronologically, it houses a period whose beginning can be set in the fall of Constantinople (1453) or the discovery of America (1492), and whose end can be placed in the French Revolution (1789) or at the end of the previous decade, after the independence of the United States (1776). -
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Constitutional monarchy
A constitutional monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the sovereign exercises authority in accordance with a constitution. To do this, in France, the National Constituent Assembly approved the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; drew up a constitution based on the separation of powers, national sovereignty, legal equality, and census suffrage, though the king reserved the right of veto, and formed a Legislative Assembly. -
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Contemporary History
The Contemporary Age is the name that designates the historical period between the Declaration of Independence of the United States (1776) or the French Revolution (1789), and today. -
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French Revolution
It's a revolution that began in France, in May 1789, when the Ancien Régime was abolished in favour of a constitutional monarchy. Its causes were a social crisis developed by the Third Estate and an economic and financial crisis (poor harvest, new taxes...). Their consequences were the construction of a society based on respect for fundamental and basic human rights and on the principle that all citizens had the same rights and should choose representatives to govern their nation. -
Estates-General meeting
Estates-General was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (300 members), nobility (300), and the Third Estate (600). It convened by Louis XVI in Versailles in May 1789 to approve tax reform, but the Third Estate representatives decided to leave the meeting when the privileged classes refused to allow them greater representation and insisted on one vote per estate rather than one per representative. -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath (in French, Serment du Jeu de Paume) was a commitment to a national constitution and representative government, taken by the representatives of the Third Estate in Versailles. They proclaimed themselves the National Assembly and pledged to draft a constitution that reflected the will of the majority of French people. -
Storming of the Bastille
The people of Paris supported the Assembly's proposals and, on July 14, they stormed and dismantled the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. This action signaled the beginning of the French Revolution. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
On 26 August 1789, the French National Constituent Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen which defined individual and collective rights at the time of the French Revolution.
Inspired by the declaration of American independence of 1776 and the philosophical spirit of the 18th century, marks the end of the Ancien Régime and the beginning of a new era.
w.elysee.fr/la-presidence/la-declaration-des-droits-de-l-homme-et-du-citoyen -
Women's March on Versailles
Morning 5/10/1789: a large group of women in a Paris marketplace began to revolt. They wanted to buy bread for their families. They began to march through Paris demanding bread at a fair price. As they marched, more people joined the group and soon there were thousands of marchers. The crowd ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched to the Palace of Versailles. They besieged the palace and compelled the king to return with them to Paris. -
First French Constitution
The Constitution of 1791 was drafted by the National Constituent Assembly and passed in September 1791. It was France’s first attempt at a written national constitution. It preserved the monarchy who reserved the right of veto but approved the separation of powers, national sovereignty, and legal equality. It also introduced census suffrage, giving the vote to people with a certain level of wealth. -
War of the First Coalition
This was part of the struggle which followed the French revolutionary wars, between 1792-1797, with the great dynastic powers of Europe trying to reverse the outcome of the revolution and restore the French monarchy. The forces of the First Coalition were Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Sardinia, and the Netherlands. -
Storm of Tuileries Palace
The Insurrection of 10 August 1792 was a defining event of the French Revolution, when armed revolutionaries in Paris, increasingly in conflict with the French monarchy, stormed the Tuileries Palace. The conflict led France to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. -
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Social Republic
Social Republic was the second phase of the French Revolution. It started with the betrayal by the king and the military invasión of Prussia and Austria. This increased republican feelings among "common people" (sans-culottes). On 10 August 1792, they stormed Tuileries Palaces and imprisoned the royal family, declaring a Republic in France, ruled by Girondins (1792-1793) and Jacobins (1793-1794). -
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Girondin Convention
It's the first period of the history of the Nationale Convention (a new assembly elected by universal male suffrage) during the social republic, controlled by the Girondins, the more moderate bourgeoisie. They executed Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. -
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Jacobin Convention
Second period of the National Convention when the Jacobins, the most radical sector of the bourgeoisie, seized power. It's the most extreme phase of the French Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety, leader by Robespierre, had the executive power and enacted a new constitution. -
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution when, during the Jacobin Convention, a series of numerous public executions, under the Law of Suspects, took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and spurious accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
Execution of Louis XVI
Louis XVI had failed to address France's financial problems. In 1792, the Legislative Assembly proclaimed the First French Republic. That November, proof of Louis XVI's secret dealings and counter-revolutionary intrigues was discovered, and he and his family were charged with treason. Louis was soon found guilty by the National Assembly and condemned to death. He was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution on January 21, 1793. -
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Conservative Republic
The third and final phase of the French Revolution. A coup ended the dictatorial Jacobin government. The moderate bourgeoisie seized power, cancelled Jacobin laws and drafted the Constitution of 1795 that granted executive power to a collegial government, known as the Directory, and restored census suffrage. -
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The Consulate
The Consulate was a period of autocratic and authoritarian rule in France lead by the general Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was named consul in 1799 and aspired to put an end to the political instability of the French Revolution, consolidate some of the revolutionary principles and promote economic recovery through a government that represented the interests of the bourgeoisie. -
Coup of 18 Brumaire
The coup of 18 Brumaire, (November 9, 1799) was the 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. -
Constitution of 1800
French constitution established after the Coup of 18 Brumaire, during the French Revolution. It created the regime known as the Consulate, which concentrated all real power in the hands of Napoleon. The new political system didn't include the separation of powers or a declaration of rights. Liberties were very limited and public opinion was censured. The state was organized into departments that were run by prefects. -
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The Napoleonic Empire
The period from the coronation of Napoleon as emperor by the Pope in 1804, until his abdication in 1815. In this period, Napoleon carried out his conquest of Europe from Germany to Spain. -
Napoleon crowned emperor
On December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of France in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. He was crowned by the Pope. He defeated most European monarchies (Russia, Austria, Naples...) and controlled most of Europe. -
Invasion of Spain and Joseph Bonaparte crowned king
In 1808, under the pretext of sending reinforcements to the French army occupying Portugal, French Emperor Napoleon invaded Spain. Thus began the Peninsular War, an important phase of the Napoleonic Wars. French forces forced King Charles IV to abdicate. In early May, Madrid revolted, and on June 15 Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, was proclaimed the new king of Spain, leading to a general anti-French revolt across the Iberian Peninsula. -
Congress of Vienna and Holy Alliance Treaty
Meeting of the Great Powers in 1814-1815 organized by Austrian Chancellor Metternich whose objectives were to stop the spread of liberal ideas and restore absolutism in Europe. It established the legitimacy of the absolute monarchs, the denial of national sovereignty, the balance of power between the victors, and the right of intervention. Its consequence was the Holy Alliance Treaty that stipulated that the absolute monarchs would unite against any threat of liberal revolution. -
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The Restoration of absolutism
Between 1814 and 1815, the powers that defeated Napoleon met at the Congress of Vienna. They wanted to stop the spread of liberal ideas and restore absolutism in Europe. They established the ideological principles of the Restoration, such as the legitimacy of the absolute monarchs and the denial of national sovereignty. -
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was Napoleon’s final defeat, ending 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and the other powers of Europe. It was fought during the Hundred Days of Napoleon’s restoration, 3 miles (5 km) south of Waterloo village, between Napoleon’s 72,000 troops and the combined forces of the Duke of Wellington’s allied army of 68,000 (with British, Dutch, Belgian, and German units) and about 45,000 Prussians. -
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Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence was the armed conflict produced by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1829 against the rule of the Ottoman Empire and the late assistance of various European powers such as the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the United Kingdom. Greece gained its independence in 1830. -
Revolutions of 1830
The Congress of Vienna did not respect the liberal principles of the nationalist aspirations of some European peoples. So, two main opposition forces (liberalism and nationalism) appeared. The insurrections began in France and spread all over Europe, with significant popular support. In some places, they were successful and absolutism was replaced by liberal political systems (France); and in others, they were not (Poland). -
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The Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict that led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. Belgium became a liberal monarchy ruled by Leopold I. -
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The Age of the revolutions
In 1830 began a revolutionary wave in Europe. It included two "romantic nationalist" revolutions, the Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the July Revolution in France along with revolutions in Congress Poland, Italian states, Portugal, and Switzerland. It was followed eighteen years later, by another and much stronger wave of revolutions known as the Revolutions of 1848. -
Zollverein
The Customs Union of the States of Germany (in German: Zollverein) was a customs organization made in 1834 by means of which tariffs were abolished among the members of the German Confederation, with the exception of Austria.
The Customs Union promoted the customs tariff unit in a process of economic unification that Austria was unable to prevent.
It functioned until 1871 when after the Franco-Prussian War the German Empire was constituted which assumed powers in commercial matters. -
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French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was a short-lived republican government of France under President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. It lasted from the 1848 Revolution to the 1851 coup by which the president made himself Emperor Napoleon III and initiated the Second Empire. This Republic established universal male suffrage, press freedom, the abolition of the death penalty, and the recognition of certain rights for workers. -
Revolutions of 1848
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. The revolutions were essentially democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation-states. The revolutions spread across Europe after an initial revolution began in France. They all ended in failure and repression and were followed by widespread disillusionment among liberals. -
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Italian Unification process
Italian unification was the 19th century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state, the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1871, when Rome was officially designated the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. -
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German Unification process
In the 1860s, Otto von Bismarck, then Minister President of Prussia, provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in its defeat of France. In 1871 he unified Germany into a nation-state, forming the German Empire. Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser of the second German Empire.