French History Timeline

1590-03-14 Battle of Ivry: French King Henry IV defeats the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion

1779-06-16 Spain declares war on Great Britain in support of France and the USA, starting the Great Siege of Gibraltar which goes on to last 3 years, 7 months and 2 weeks

1781-09-05 American Revolutionary War: French fleet of 24 ships under Comte de Grasse defeat British forces under Admiral Thomas Graves and Samuel Hood at the Battle of the Chesapeake [Battle of the Virginia Capes] and trap General Lord Charles Cornwallis

1781-09-28 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops begin the siege of Yorktown

1782-09-13 The Grand Assault on Gibraltar by the allied French and Spanish fleets including ten floating batteries and land forces is heavily defeated by the British garrison with all of the floating batteries destroyed and allied casualties of 1,473 compared to only 83 for the British

1789-07-14 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris (now celebrated as France's national day)

1789-10-05 French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, and have the King and his court moved to Paris

1793-01-21 Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine in Paris, following his conviction for "high treason" by the newly created French Parliament (Convention nationale), during the French Revolution

1794-06-26 Battle of Fleurus: Major victory by forces of the First French Republic under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan over the Coalition Army (Great Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, and Habsburgs). First use of a reconnaissance balloon.

1797-02-22 The Last Invasion of Britain, launched by the French during the Revolutionary Wars, begins near Fishguard, Wales

1804-12-02 General Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French at the Notre Dame de Paris in a ceremony officiated by Pope Pius VII

1805-10-21 Battle of Trafalgar: British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats combined French and Spanish fleet. Nelson shot and killed during battle.

1807-07-07 French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte and Russian Tsar Alexander I meet on a raft in the middle of the Neman River and sign the first Treaty of Tilsit

1815-06-18 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon Bonaparte and France defeated by British forces under Duke of Wellington and Prussian troops under Field Marshall von Blücher

1839-01-09 Louis Daguerre demonstrates his 'daguerreotype' photographic process to the French Academy of Science

1854-09-20 Battle of the Alma: British, French and Ottoman alliance defeat the Russian Empire in the 1st major battle of the Crimean War

1856-03-30 The Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, France and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War

1875-08-25 Captain Matthew Webb makes the 1st observed and unassisted swim across the English Channel in 21 hours and 45 minutes

1887-04-28 "Europe's first motoring competition" is 'won' by The Marquis de Dion on a steam-powered quadricycle built by French toymaker and engineer Georges Bouton; French newspaper Le Velocipede organized the 'test', and Bouton was the only participant

1910-03-28 First seaplane takes off from water under its own power, piloted by Henri Fabre from the Étang de Berre lagoon at Martigues, France

1914-09-06 World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins, French and British forces prevent German advance on Paris (till the 12th Sept)

1920-05-16 French heroine Joan of Arc is canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV

1924-01-25 1st Winter Olympic Games open in Chamonix, France

1940-06-04 British complete the "Miracle of Dunkirk" by evacuating 338,226 allied troops from France via a flotilla of over 800 vessels including Royal Navy destroyers, merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and even lifeboats

1940-09-12 Four teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux, France and discover 17,000 year old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings

1944-06-06 Operation Overlord: D-Day begins as the 156,000-strong Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France, during World War II

1944-08-25 German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Free French forces of Philippe Leclerc, disobeying Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy the city. President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle gives a famous speech at the Hôtel de Ville.

1985-07-10 French foreign intelligence agents blow up the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, New Zealand, to prevent it interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira is killed.

1990-12-01 British and French workers meet in the middle of the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel