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Period: to
French Revolution
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Convening the Estates General
The Estates-General meets for the first time since 1614 -
Tennis Court Oath
People from the Third Estate created a goup that they called the National Assembly. Also the Tennis Court Oath of dismissed Estates-General members who refuse to adjourn. -
Storming of the Bastille
The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. -
Great Fear
Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and the grain supplies were now guarded by local militias as rumors that bands of armed men were roaming the countryside. -
Declaration of the Rights of Men
A fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. -
Women's March to Versailles
One of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread. -
Louis and Marie's flight to Varennes
A significant episode in the French Revolution during which King Louis XVI of France, his wife Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family attempted unsuccessfully to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution. -
Brunswick Manifesto
A proclamation issued by Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commander of the Allied Army. -
National Convention
Comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly. -
The Terror or Reign of Terror
A period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." -
Directory
A body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate -
Concordat of 1801
It solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its civil status. -
Louisiana Purchase
the acquisition by the United States of America of 828,000 square miles (2,140,000 km2) of France's claim to the territory -
Napoleonic Code
The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified. -
Napoleon becomes Emperor
Napoleon next moved to recreate an aristocracy, a long French tradition that had been eliminated by the Revolution. -
Battle of Trafalgar
a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition -
Continental System
the foreign policy of Napoleon I of France in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. -
Peninsular War
a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. -
Invasion of Russia
a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. -
Exile to St. Helena
After his final defeat at Waterloo and his subsequent second exile, Napoleon Bonaparte spent 10 weeks on board the HMS Northumberland as it sailed him to the far-flung reaches of the South Atlantic. -
Exile to Elba
During the months Napoleon stayed on the island, he carried out a series of economic and social reforms to improve the quality of life, partly to pass the time and partly out of a genuine concern for the well-being of the islanders. -
Battle of Waterloo
fought on Sunday, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands -
Napoleon Bonaparte takes over
the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power.