August 22, 1791 – January 1, 1804
Enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rise up, beginning the only successful slave revolution in history.
Parisians storm the Bastille fortress-prison, an iconic moment of the French Revolution.
France's National Constituent Assembly adopts a declaration of liberty, equality and national sovereignty, a founding document of the French Revolution.
The revolutionary government dominated by the Committee of Public Safety carries out mass repression, with tens of thousands executed; it ends with the fall of Robespierre.
Condemned by the National Convention, the former king Louis XVI is guillotined at the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
Simón Bolívar, leader of independence movements across much of South America, is born in Caracas.
Napoleon Bonaparte overthrows the Directory and establishes the Consulate, holding supreme power as First Consul.