Napoleon Bonaparte overthrows the Directory and establishes the Consulate, holding supreme power as First Consul.
Alessandro Volta announces the voltaic pile, the first source of continuous electric current.
Edward Jenner inoculates the boy James Phipps with cowpox material, pioneering vaccination against smallpox.
Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution, dies while imprisoned at Fort de Joux in France.
The United States buys the vast Louisiana territory from France, roughly doubling the size of the country.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaims Haiti's independence, making it the second independent nation in the Americas and the first republic founded by formerly enslaved people.
Napoleon crowns himself at Notre-Dame de Paris in the presence of Pope Pius VII, formalising the First French Empire.