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Publication of Hobbes work- Social Contract
Social contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West. -
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French Revolution
The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. -
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Formation of the National Assembly
On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath ("serment du jeu de paume"), vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. -
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. -
Bastille is stormed
The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris.The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a fundamental document of French constitutional history, drafted by Emmanuel Sieyes, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on Aug. 26, 1789, and embodied in the French constitution of 1791 as a preamble. The French declaration listed the inalienable rights of the individual -
Women's March of 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. -
1st use of the Guillotine
On April 25, 1792, convicted felon Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine. -
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Republican calendar began
The calendar was adopted more than one year after the advent of the First Republic (there was no year 1), after a long debate involving the mathematicians Romme and Monge, the poets Chenier and Fabre d' Eglantine and the painter David. -
Execution of King 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. -
Establishment of Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comité de salut public)—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 (1793–94), a stage of the French Revolution. -
Robespierre killed
In the latter months of 1793 he came to dominate the Committee of Public Safety, the principal organ of the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror, but in 1794 he was overthrown and guillotined. -
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Establishment of the Directory
As per this new constitution, the Directory was established with two houses: the Council of Ancients, made of 250 people, and a second council of 500 people. By 1799, a small coup overthrew the Directory and established the Consulate, a body of three supposedly equal peers who would guide France with little to no assistance from the legislature. -
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. It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family. -
Napoleon becomes Emperor (the first time)
In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 he established the French empire. Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. -
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Continental System
As a response to the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British government on 16 May 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on 21 November 1806, which brought into effect a large-scale embargo against British trade. -
Napoleon Exiled
In March 1815, he escaped his island exile and returned to Paris, where he regained supporters and reclaimed his emperor title, Napoleon I, in a period known as the Hundred Days. -
(Battle of) Waterloo
At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history. -
Napoleon’s Death
In May 1821, he died, most likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old. In 1840, his body was returned to Paris, and a magnificent funeral was held.