The French Revolution

The French Revolution (1789—1799) was the defining political upheaval of the modern era. It destroyed absolute monarchy, feudal privileges and legal inequality, and affirmed civil rights, national sovereignty and a secular state. Its key symbols are the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the execution of Louis XVI, the Jacobin Reign of Terror, and Napoleon's rise on 18 Brumaire 1799. The Revolution became a template for every later liberation movement — from Latin America to the European revolutions of 1848.