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This was the period where the ideas of the Enlightenment were really brought into existence, with great thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes.
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"Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes was a very early Enlightenment work. It was one of the first appearances of the idea of a social contract, where people exchange some freedoms for protection.
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When King Louis XIV died, it caused quite a bit of chaos and disorder. This disorder definitely was one of the smaller sparks that started the fire of the French Revolution. (http://bit.ly/XIVded)
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When Louis XVI became king, he kind of messed up. He made lots of questionable decisions, which piled up in such a way that he pushed the monarchy into debt. This debt was one of the reasons the French Revolution began, as he needed to increase the taxes.
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The king was running low on money and needed to raise taxes. He was going to tax the nobility, but this made them very mad. He had to call a meeting of the Estates-General, which represented the 3 Estates, or social classes. A meeting of the Estates-General hadn't been called for 175 years! (http://bit.ly/est8zgnrl)
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This was the period where the Third Estate in France, which were essentially the lowest class, decided they were fed up with stuff like paying 98% of all taxes. They revolted, and there was eventually a constitutional monarchy. There was some radical events that happened and kind of threw everything off, but France eventually stabilized.
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During the meeting of the Estates-General, the Third Estate knew they would be outvoted. They went to meet where they usually would, only to find it locked. Their representatives decided to close themselves in a tennis court until they came up with a constitution. (http://bit.ly/10is0th)
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The king recruited a group of soldiers for his own protection, but people in Paris thought the soldiers were going to kill them. They raided an old prison called the Bastille to get gunpowder and other things like that. (http://bit.ly/b45till3)
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Peasants across France began to attack and kill people in higher classes as they believed that the higher classes had a plan to destroy the 3rd Estate. These attacks were one of the reasons that the revolution succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy, as the attacks scared the upper classes. (http://bit.ly/gr8fear)
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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was a sort of constitution written by members of the Third Estate, and it declared a couple things in general. It basically says that everyone is equal, and the government needs some limits to be placed on it to stop it from growing out of control. (http://bit.ly/d3cl4r4t10n)
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This was when the hundreds of thousands of slaves on the island St. Domingue revolted after they found out about the constitution written in France. There was lots of fighting, and St. Domingue eventually wound up as it's own nation, known by its original name, Haiti.
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When the slaves on St. Domingue found out about the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, they obviously wanted those rights. They began to revolt against the white people on the island. (http://bit.ly/h8ianrev)
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The new revolutionary government declared France as a republic, formally removing the monarchy. (http://bit.ly/r3publ1c)
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After King Louis XVI tried to escape from the revolutionaries, he was caught and placed in prison. He was executed via guillotine soon afterwards. (https://bit.ly/lou15XVI)
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A radical group known as the Jacobins wondered if France needed a king at all. Their leader, Maximilien Robespierre took advantage of the chaos around the execution of King Louis XVI to lead the revolution in an even more radical direction. The Reign of Terror was a period where Robespierre began executing random citizens as "enemies of the revolution." (http://bit.ly/r0bzp13rr3)
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After the Reign of Terror went on for long enough, the French citizens decided to arrest and execute Robespierre.(http://bit.ly/r0bzp13rr3)
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The Directory was a group of 5 people created to lead France. They brought order to France, fixed the financial problems, made schools, and did many other things.(http://bit.ly/d1r3ct0ry)
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After Spain left their part of St. Domingue, Toussaint L'Ouverture and one of his allies, Andre Rigaud, kicked the English out of St. Domingue. But after that, they began fighting for control over the island. L'Ouverture eventually won.(http://bit.ly/w4r0fkn1f3s)
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Napoleon staged a coup d'etat to overthrow the Directory. This is seen as the end of the revolution.(http://bit.ly/np0l30n)
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After Napoleon's coup d'etat, his government made a new constitution. It was the first French constitution without a explicit thing of rights. (http://bit.ly/n4pc0nst)
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After winning the War of Knives, L'ouveture became leader of St. Domingue. He soon started on making a constitution. (https://bit.ly/h8ianrev)
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With this new constitution, he abolished slavery and gave rights, but he also banned the main religion on the island and made himself ruler for life. (https://bit.ly/h8ianrev)
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L'Ouverture's actions angered his people and Napoleon. Napoleon sent troops to the island. A decent chunk of L'Ouveture's troops joined the French army out of anger. One of his top generals that left his army, Jean-Jaques Dessalines, made a plan that succeeded in capturing L'ouveture. (https://bit.ly/h8ianrev)
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After fighting Napoleon's troops out of St. Domingue, Dessalines proclaims the island as a new, independent nation. This new nation is known by it's original name, Haiti. (https://bit.ly/h8ianrev)
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In Latin America, there was a very strict class pyramid, with people from Spain at the top, and the natives at the bottom. The second class, or Creoles, were smart enough to read Enlightenment works and see the American Revolution happen. This gave them the idea to fight for their own rights.
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When Napoleon invaded Spain, the Creoles saw their opportunity to break free from Spain. They succeeded and became a separate entity. (http://bit.ly/m3x1c0sp41n)
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A creole revolutionary named Simon Bolivar arrived at Merida, Venezuela. He successfully drove the Spanish out from there, along with many other places, earning him the nickname of "The Liberator" (http://bit.ly/b0l1v4r)
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Bolivar liberated Peru from the Spanish in 1821. (http://bit.ly/p3ruv1an)
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Gran Columbia was a republic formed by Bolivar. It was a rather short lived one too, only lasting 20-ish years. (http://bit.ly/gr4nc0lumb)
