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Napoleon was born in Corsica, a French-ruled island in the Mediterranean.
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At the age of nine, he was sent to France to be trained for a military career.
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Upon graduating in September 1785, Napoleon was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fere artillery regiment
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He spent the early years of the Revolution in Corsica, fighting in a complex three-way struggle between royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists.
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He returned to Corsica once again and came into conflict with Paoli, who had decided to split with France and sabotage a French assault on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, where Bonaparte was one of the expedition leaders.
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He supported the revolutionary Jacobin faction, gained the rank of lieutenant colonel and command over a battalion of volunteers.
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After he had exceeded his leave of absence and led a riot against a French army in Corsica, he was somehow able to convince military authorities in Paris to promote him to captain in July 1792.
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Napoleon was imprisoned and then exiled to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,870 km from the west coast of Africa.
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In February 1821, his health began to fail rapidly, and on 3 May two British physicians, who had recently arrived, attended on him but could only recommend palliatives.
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Napoleon's physician, François Carlo Antommarchi, led the autopsy, which found the cause of death to be stomach cancer.
