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Publication of Hobbes work-social contract
Hobbes's ideal commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth and granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense. In his introduction, Hobbes describes this commonwealth as an "artificial person" and as a body politic that mimics the human body. -
Formation of the National Assembly
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which existed from June 13, 1789 to July 9, 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (the common people) of the Estates-General -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath was important because it was the first step in the Third Estate of France forming an organized protest of the French government in the lead-up to the French Revolution. -
The Declaration of the Rights of man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed by France's National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, is a fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights. -
Bastille is Stormed
On 14 July 1789, a state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The prison had become a symbol of the monarchy's dictatorial rule, and the event became one of the defining moments in the Revolution that followed. -
Women's March
5th October 1789 the Women's March on Versailles. On this day in 1789, an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women – armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets – marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. -
Republican Calendar Began
The French Republican Calendar, also commonly called the French Revolutionary Calendar, was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805 -
Execution of Louis XVI
One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. There, Louis was forced to accept the constitution of 1791, which reduced him to a mere figurehead. -
Establishment of Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793 formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror, a stage of the French Revolution. -
Robespierre's Death
Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, is overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. 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. -
Establishment of the Directory
Directory, French Directoire, the French Revolutionary government set up by the Constitution of the Year III, which lasted four years, from November 1795 to November 1799 -
Napoleonic Code started
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the “Napoleonic Code.” The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family, and individual rights. -
Napoleon becomes Emperor
Summary. On May 18, 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, and made Josephine Empress. His coronation ceremony took place on December 2, 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, with incredible splendor and at considerable expense. -
Continental System
Continental System, in the Napoleonic wars, the blockade designed by Napoleon to paralyze Great Britain through the destruction of British commerce. The decrees of Berlin (November 21, 1806) and Milan (December 17, 1807) proclaimed a blockade: neutrals and French allies were not to trade with the British. -
Napoleon Exiled
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), also known as Napoleon I, was a French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. ... However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon abdicated the throne two years later and was exiled to the island of Elba. -
Waterloo
On the 18th of June, 1815, the armies of Napoleon and Field Marshall the Duke of Wellington met near Waterloo (in present day Belgium). The ensuing battle came to be a defining moment in European history, and the end of Napoleon's reign as Emperor of the French. -
Napoleon's Death
Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. Six years later, he died, most likely of stomach cancer, and in 1840 his body was returned to Paris, where it was interred in the Hotel des Invalides. -
First use of the Guillotine
a device for beheading a person by means of a heavy blade that is dropped between two posts serving as guides: widely used during the French Revolution.