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a peasant uprising culminated in the storming of the Bastille, the armory-prison that had become a symbol of the tyranny of the ancien régime. After taking over the building, the mob massacred the staff and freed the prisoners. -
Painting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, ca. 1789. Adopted less than two months after the storming of the Bastille ushered in the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen remains one of the primary documents on human rights known throughout the world. -
The Reign of Terror took place during a period sometimes referred to as the Montagnard Dictatorship, as the radical Montagnard faction dominated the French National Convention (the revolution's fourth legislature) and thereby controlled France's government. -
French slavery was brutal, with torture and beatings commonplace. Though more than 1 million enslaved people had been brought to Saint-Dominque by 1789, only 452,000 survived. In addition, 39,000 white and 27,000 mixed race people (gens de couleur) completed the population. -
Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, and made Josephine Empress. His coronation ceremony took place on December 2, 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, with incredible splendor and at considerable expense. -
The Regency period begins in Great Britain. Francisco de Miranda returns to Venezuela from Great Britain and is named dictator by the revolutionary legislature shortly after the rebels declare Venezuela's independence on July 5.
Led by José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who idolized the French Revolution, Paraguay breaks out of the Spanish viceroyalty of La Plata on May 14. Francia emerges as the nation's prominent leader with control over the army. -
fter a crushing defeat at the Battle of Calderón Bridge on January 17, 1811, Hidalgo fled north, hoping to escape into the United States. He was caught on March 21 and executed by a firing squad on July 30, 1811, at age 58. -
The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt began on 22 August 1791, and ended in 1804