French Revolution Timeline

  • May 5, 1789 meeting with the Estates-General

    The Estates-General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm summoned by Louis XVI to propose solutions to France's financial problems. It ended when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, signaling the outbreak of the French Revolution.
  • Tennis Court Oath

    Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall at Versailles on June 20 and thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court (salle du jeu de paume). There they took an oath never to separate until a written constitution had been established for France.
  • Storming of the Bastille

    During the unrest of 1789, on July 14 a mob approached the Bastille to demand the arms and ammunition stored there, and, when the forces guarding the structure resisted, the attackers captured the prison and released the seven prisoners held there
  • Declaration of the Rights of Man

    the French National Constituent Assembly issued the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) which defined individual and collective rights at the time of the French Revolution.