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Palace of Versailles built
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 18 kilometres west of Paris, in the Yvelines Department of Île-de-France region in France. -
When King Louis moved the capital of France from Paris to Versailles
The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682. By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to extract more control of the government from the nobility and to distance himself from the population of Paris -
When King Louis XVI married Marie Antoinette
A marriage between the two royal houses had been planned since the early 1760s, but only came about in 1770. On 19 April the wedding took place by proxy in Vienna, marrying the Dauphin and future Louis XVI, the grandson of Louis XV, to Marie-Antoinette, the youngest daughter of Maria-Theresa of Habsburg. -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath (French: Serment du Jeu de Paume, pronounced [sɛʁmɑ̃ dy ʒø də pom]) was taken on 20 June 1789 by the members of the French Third Estate in a tennis court on the initiative of Jean Joseph Mounier. -
Bastille is Stormed
storming of the Bastille, iconic conflict of the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, fears that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France's newly constituted National Assembly led a crowd of Parisians to successfully besiege the Bastille, an old fortress that had been used since 1659 as a state prison. -
When The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was written
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into existence in the summer of 1789, born of an idea of the Constituent Assembly, which was formed by the assembly of the Estates General to draft a new Constitution, and precede it with a declaration of principles. -
Women’s March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the Black March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. -
King Louis XVI is executed
In 1792 he was tried by the revolutionaries. The monarchy was formally abolished, and “Year I” of the French Republic was declared. Louis XVI died at the guillotine on 21 January 1793. -
The Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) 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 the Federalist revolts, revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
Napoleon launched a Coup d'Etat on the weak and corrupt Directory.
Coup of 18–19 Brumaire, (November 9–10, 1799), 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 event is often viewed as the effective end of the French Revolution. -
Creation of the Napoleonic Code
Napoleonic Code, French Code Civil, French civil code enacted by Napoleon in 1804. It clarified and made uniform the private law of France and followed Roman law in being divided into three books: the law of persons, things, and modes of acquiring ownership of things. -
Napoleon crowns himself emperor.
On the 2nd of December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris. According to legend, during the coronation he snatched the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowned himself, thus displaying his rejection of the authority of the Pontiff. -
Defeat in Russian Campaign
Of the roughly 600,000 troops who followed Napoleon into Russia, fewer than 100,000 made it out. Napoleon's invincible Grand Army had been destroyed. The Russian Army now flooded into central Europe, taking up Prussia and Austria as allies, and soon the German nationalists rose up in battle as well. -
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 between Napoleon's French Army and a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. The decisive battle of its age, it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever.