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Painting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, ca. 1789. Adopted less than two months after the storming of the Bastille ushered in the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen remains one of the primary documents on human rights known throughout the world. -
a peasant uprising culminated in the storming of the Bastille, the armory-prison that had become a symbol of the tyranny of the ancien régime. After taking over the building, the mob massacred the staff and freed the prisoners. -
Sensing an opportunity, the slaves of northern St. Domingue organized and planned a massive rebellion which began on August 22, 1791. When news of the slave revolt broke out, American leaders rushed to provide support for the whites of St. Domingue. -
With the aid of the British, the rebels scored a major victory against the French force there, and on November 9, 1803, colonial authorities surrendered. In 1804, General Dessalines assumed dictatorial power, and Haiti became the second independent nation in the Americas.
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The Reign of Terror, which took place from the summer of 1793 to the summer of 1794, was the most violent episode of the French Revolution. The Reign of Terror took place during a period sometimes referred to as the Montagnard Dictatorship, as the radical Montagnard faction dominated the French National Convention (the revolution's fourth legislature) and thereby controlled France's government.
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Toussaint Louverture led a successful slave revolt and emancipated the slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti). A formidable military leader, he turned the colony into a country governed by former black slaves as a nominal French protectorate and made himself ruler of the entire island of Hispaniola. -
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.
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Grandiose in his schemes, headstrong and difficult, Simón Bolívar nevertheless conquered enormous obstacles in gaining South American independence from Spain, particularly in his homeland of Venezuela. -
After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Calderón Bridge on January 17, 1811, Hidalgo fled north, hoping to escape into the United States. He was caught on March 21 and executed by a firing squad on July 30, 1811, at age 58.