-
The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the ancien regime and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible momentum. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished and Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette were sent to the guillotine for treason in 1793. -
The night of August 4, 1789 was the session of the National Constituent Assembly during which the suppression of feudal privileges was voted. It begun on Tuesday, August 4, 1789 at seven o'clock in the evening, it continued after midnight, until two o'clock in the morning. -
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 is a fundamental text of the French Revolution which sets out a set of individual and common natural rights, as well as the conditions for their implementation. Its last articles were adopted on August 26, 1789. -
the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were nearly rioting over the high price of bread.
-
On October 10, 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized the properties and land held by the Catholic Church and decided to sell them as assignats. On July 12, 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Catholic Church in France to the French government. -
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is a decree adopted in France by the National Constituent Assembly on July 12, 1790, during the French Revolution. -
Deeply involved in the French Revolution, Jeanne-Marie Roland began by writing political articles for the newspaper Courrier de Lyon. She also established a salon in Paris that quickly became a meeting place for leaders of the moderate Girondin faction. In 1793, Jeanne and her husband, Jean-Marie Roland, were arrested when, with her encouragement, he publicly attacked Robespierre. -
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen was published on 15 September 1791. It is modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Olympe de Gouges dedicated the text to Marie Antoinette, whom de Gouges described as "the most detested" of women. -
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it.
-
The Insurrection of 10 August 1792 was a defining event of the French Revolution, when armed revolutionaries in Paris, increasingly in conflict with the French monarchy, stormed the Tuileries Palace. The conflict led France to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. -
Louis XVI was officially arrested on 13 August 1792, and sent to the Temple, an ancient fortress in Paris that was used as a prison. On September 21, the National Constituent Assembly declared France to be a Republic and abolished the Monarchy. -
The Battle of Valmy, also known as the Battle or Affaire du Camp de la Lune, was the first decisive victory for the French army during the Revolutionary wars following the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy. -
The execution of Louis XVI by guillotine, a major event of the French Revolution, took place publicly on 21 January 1793 at the Place de la Révolution in Paris. -
On October 30, 1793, the National Convention decreed that "clubs and popular societies of women, under whatever denomination, are forbidden". The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women was officially dissolved, despite numerous protests by leading figures in the club.
-
The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety.
-
The 29 Girondins and two ministers were arrested under pressure from the sans-culottes, the Jacobins of the clubs, and the Montagnards. -
In France, on 4 February 1794, the National Convention enacted a law abolishing slavery in the French colonies. Yet this was not followed up with any real effect and Napoleon Bonaparte repealed the law as First Consul in 1802. -
In July 1794 Robespierre was arrested and executed as were many of his fellow Jacobins, thereby ending the Reign of Terror, which was succeeded by the Thermidorian Reaction. -
The War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) was the second attempt by European monarchs, led by the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Russian Empire, to contain or eliminate Revolutionary France. They formed a new alliance and attempted to roll back France's previous military conquests. Austria and Russia raised fresh armies for campaigns in Germany and Italy in 1799.
-
Coup of 18–19 Brumaire was a coup d'état that overthrew the system of government under the Directory in France and substituted the Consulate, making way for the despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte.
-
The Consulate was the top-level Government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to this period of French history.
-
The main terms of the Concordat of 1801 between France and Pope Pius VII included: A declaration that "Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French" but not the official state religion, thus maintaining religious freedom, in particular with respect to Protestants. -
On May 18, 1804, the Sénat conservateur vested the Republican government of the French First Republic in an emperor, and preparations for a coronation followed. Napoleon's elevation to emperor was overwhelmingly approved by the French citizens in the French constitutional referendum of 1804. Among Napoleon's motivations for being crowned were to gain prestige in international royalist and Catholic circles and to lay the foundation for a future dynasty. -
On the 2nd of December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris. -
On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. -
The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe. It served as a model for later organizations such as the League of Nations in 1919 and the United Nations in 1945.
-
In 1815, French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte suffered their final defeat in the "The Battle of Waterloo", and the Napoleonic Wars were over. The French were defeated by Allied armies commanded by the Duke of Wellington from Britain and General Blucher from Prussia. -
Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819. She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. -
With the support of wealthy Greek exile communities in Britain and the United States and with the aid of sympathizers in Western Europe, they planned the rebellion. The society's basic objective was a revival of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as the capital, not the formation of a national state.
-
Greeks from neighboring islands had arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chiotes (the native inhabitants of the island) to join their revolt. In response, Ottoman troops landed on the island and killed thousands.
-
In 1830, with France's colonial empire in ruins, Charles X ordered his army to invade Ottoman Algiers. Victory did not salvage his regime from revolution, but it began the French conquest of Algeria, which was continued and consolidated by the succeeding July Monarchy. -
The Revolutions of 1830 were a revolutionary wave in Europe which took place in 1830 and 1831. It included two "romantic nationalist" revolutions, the Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the July Revolution in France along with revolutions in Congress Poland, Italian states, Portugal and Switzerland.
-
Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire and forced it to accept Greek autonomy in the Treaty of Adrianople (1829). After nine years of war, Greece was finally recognized as an independent state under the London Protocol of February 1830. -
Queen Victoria ruled for 63 years, from 1837 to 1901, enjoying a longer reign than any monarch before her. Her name is synonymous with an entire era, and she was one of the most powerful women in history.
-
The First Opium War, was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was Britain's determination to force opium sales on China after China's seizure of opium stocks at Canton to stop the banned opium trade, and threatening the death penalty for future offenders.
-
The Mines and Collieries Act 1842 (c. 99), commonly known as the Mines Act 1842, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act forbade women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work. -
The Factory Act of 1844 was created to help the working class even more. This reduced the working hours for children ages nine to thirteen and required six and a half hours per day of work with three hours of school. Women and children over thirteen could not work for more than 12 hours a day. -
The Irish Potato Famine occurred in Ireland in 1845–49 when the potato crop failed in successive years. The crop failures were caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant.
-
The Springtime of the Peoples were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date.
-
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte that initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
-
In 1848, when the Second Republic was set up, universal male suffrage was restored for all men of French nationality, aged 21 or over, and enjoying their civil and political rights (decree of March 5, 1848). The electorate then went from 246,000 voters to more than 9 million. -
On 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the decree-law written by Victor Schœlcher abolished slavery in the remaining colonies. The state bought the slaves from the colons (white colonists; Békés in Creole), and then freed them. -
The June Days uprising was an uprising staged by French workers from 22 to 26 June 1848. It was in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a minimal source of income for the unemployed.
-
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. -
The Coup d'état of 2 December 1851 was a self-coup staged by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (later Napoleon III), at the time President of France under the Second Republic. Code-named Operation Rubicon and timed to coincide with the anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation and victory at Austerlitz, the coup dissolved the National Assembly, granted dictatorial powers to the president and preceded the establishment of the Second French Empire the next year. -
The Second French Empire was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France.
-
The legislative elections which were held in February 1852 were equally favourable to those who supported the new government. A new plebiscite on 21 November preceded the regime change: on 2 December 1852, the Second Empire was established. -
The Second Opium War was fought by Britain and France against China for trading privileges. The war culminated with the British capturing Beijing, and plundering the emperor's palace. The result was the Beijing Convention, signed later in the year.
-
The Mexican expedition was undertaken in 1862 on order of emperor Napoleon III following a financial dispute with the Republic of Mexico and his personal desire to create a Catholic empire on the continent to counterbalance U.S. influence. On 7 January 1862, approximately 3,000 French soldiers landed at Vera Cruz. -
After the fall of the Second Empire and the suppression of the Paris Commune, the new Constitutional Laws of 1875 were adopted, establishing a regime based on parliamentary supremacy.
-
In 1877, Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative Prime Minister, had Queen Victoria proclaimed as Empress of India. India was already under crown control after 1858, but this title was a gesture to link the monarchy with the empire further and bind India more closely to Britain. -
The Fashoda Incident was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in East Africa, occurring in 1898. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile river sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from the Sudan. -
Victoria died of a cerebral haemorrhage, which is a type of stroke. However, the Queen had been growing weaker for several years before her death. Her eyesight had become clouded by cataracts, and she was a wheelchair user due to her rheumatism.
