On December 2nd 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte became the first Emperor of France in a thousand years. The previous Emperors were Charlemagne‘s Carolingian Dynasty during the 8th and 9th centuries AD. Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor Napoleon I at the Notre Dame in Paris. Napoleon had served as First Consul to France, and effective French leader, … Continue reading
On November 8th 1793, after more than two centuries as a royal palace, the Louvre is opened as a public museum in Paris by the French revolutionary government. Today, the Louvre’s collection is one of the richest in the world, with artwork and artefacts representative of 11,000 years of human civilisation and culture. The Louvre … Continue reading
On October 21st 1825, in one of the most decisive naval battles in history, a British fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain. At sea, Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy consistently thwarted Napoleon Bonaparte, who led France to … Continue reading
On July 19th 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovered a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on … Continue reading
On April 11th 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba after abdicating his throne in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Napoleon was the emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history. The future emperor was born as Napoleone di Buonaparte in Ajaccio, Corsica, on August 15th 1769, the … Continue reading