French History – History Moments

Highlights of the History of France

View of the Versailles Palace from the Southern Part of the Parterre d’Eau
CC BY-SA 3.0 image from Wikipedia.

Readings in the history of France by some of the greatest writers.
Some Years listed below are approximate.

Year	Title	Author(s)
52 BC	Caesar Conquers Gaul	Napoleon III
177	Christians Persecuted in Gaul	François P. G. Guizot
451	Attila the Hun Invades the Western Roman Empire	Sir Edward S. Creasy\| \|Edward Gibbon
486-511	Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire	François P.G. Guizot
732	Battle of Tours	Edward S. Creasy
751	The Carolingian Dynasty Begins	François P.G. Guizot
772-814	Charlemagne	François P.G. Guizot
c 800	Feudalism in France and England Begins	William Stubbs
817	Empire of the Franks Splits and Decays	François P. G. Guizot
1000	Chivalry	Léon Gautier
1095	Pope Launches Crusade	Jack Le Moine
1189-1194	The Third Crusade	Henry Von Sybel
1202	Philip Breaks the Angevin Empire	Kate Norgate
1208	Zenith of Papal Power	Thomas F. Tout
1282	The Sicilian Vespers	Michele Amari
1302	The War of the Flemings with Philip the Fair of France	Eyre Evans Crowe
1302	Third Estate Joins French Parlement	Henri Martin
1314	End of the Knights Templars	Frederick C. Woodhouse\| \|Henry Hart Milman
1337	The King of England Claims Throne of France	François P. G. Guizot
1340	Battles that Began the 100 Years War	Sir John Froissart
1348	The Black Death Reaches Europe	J. F. C. Hecker\| \|Giovanni Boccaccio
1358	The Jacquerie Rebellion	Jean Froissart
1374	Medieval Dancing Mania	J. F. C. Hecker
1378	Great Pope/Anti-Pope Schism Begins	Henry Hart Milman
1415	The Battle of Agincourt	James Gairdner
1429	Joan of Arc at Orleans	Sir Edward S. Creasy
1431	Joan of Arc’s Trial and Execution	Jules Michelet
1438	Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges	William H. Jervis and Réné François Rohrbacher
1468	Burgundy’s Zenith	Paul Ferdinand Willert

Year	Title	Author(s)
1477	France Annexes Burgundy	Philippe De Comines
1490-1498	Savonarola’s Career	Pasquale Villari\| \|Jean C. L. Sismondi
1520	The Field of the Cloth of Gold	John S. Brewer
1525	The Battle of Pavia	William Robertson
1533	Calvin Driven From Paris to Geneva	A. M. Fairbairn\| \|Jean M. V. Audin
1534	Cartier Explores Canada	H. H. Miles
1552	France Breaks Up Holy Roman Empire	Lady Catherine Charlotte Jackson
1558	England Looses Her Last French Territory	Charles Knight
1561-1587	The Career of Mary Queen of Scots	Algernon Charles Swinburne
1572	The Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre	Henry White\| \|Isaac d’Israeli
1593	Henry of Navarre Ends French Religeous Wars	Maximilien De Béthune, Duc De Sully
1608	Quebec Founded	Henry H. Miles
1618	The Thirty Years War	Samuel R. Gardiner\| \|Charles F. Horne
c 1620	The Birth of Modern Scientific Methods	George Henry Lewes
1642	Cardinal Richelieu’s Administration Ends	Andrew D. White
1642	The Founding of Montreal	Alfred Sandham
1648	French Fronde Outbreak	Arthur Hassall
1659	Molière Creates Modern Comedy	Henri Van Laun
1660	When Fighting Sail Matured	Alfred Thayer Mahan
1682	La Salle Explores Length of Mississippi River	François Xavier Garneau
1685	The Edict of Nantes Revoked	Bon Louis Henri Martin
1689	The Lachine Massacre	François Xavier Garneau
1690	Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy in France	James Cotter Morison
1699	First French Colony in the Louisiana Area	Charles E.A. Gayarré
1704	The Battle of Blenheim	Sir Edward Creasy
1710	Great Britain Acquires Nova Scotia	Duncan Campbell

Year	Title	Author(s)
1716	John Law Promotes The Mississippi Bubble	Louis Adolphe Thiers
1755	Exile of the French Settlers in Acadia	William H. Withrow
1755	Braddock’s Defeat	Winthrop Sargent\| \|George Washington\| \|Captain De Contrecoeur
1755	Voltaire in Geneva	John Morley\| \|George W. Kitchin
1756-1763	The Seven Years War	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|Frederick The Great
1759	Britain Captures Quebec	Arthur G. Bradley
1775	French in the Ohio Valley	Theodore Roosevelt
1781	Yorktown Surrenders	Henry B. Dawson\| \|Lord Charles Cornwallis
1782	The Siege of Gibraltar	Frederick Sayer
1783	First Balloon Ascension	Hatton Turner
1789	Revolutionaries Storm Bastille	William Hazlitt
1791	Revolution in Haiti	Charles Wyllys Elliott
1792	Europe’s First Battle Against Republican France	Alphonse M. L. Lamartine
1793	Murders of Louis XVI and Murat; Civil War in France	Thomas Carlyle
1794	The Reign Of Terror	François P. G. Guizot
1796	Napoleon’s First Campaign	Sir Walter Scott
1798	Napoleon’s Egyptian War	Charles Knight
1803	The Louisiana Purchase	Henry S. Randall
1804	The Coronation of Napoleon	William Hazlitt
1805	The Battle of Trafalgar	Robert Southey
1805	The Battle of Austerlitz	Pierre Lanfrey
1806	Napoleon Crushes Prussia	Sir Walter Scott
1808-13	Wellington’s Peninsular Campaign	John Richard Green
1812	Napoleon’s Russian Retreat	Charles A. Fyffe\| \|Francois Guizot
1813	Leipzig Battle of the Nations	Wolfgang Menzel
1814-15	The Congress of Vienna 1814-15	Henry M. Stephens
1815	The Battle of Waterloo	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|William Siborne\| \|Victor Hugo
1830	Franch Takes Algiers	Francis Pulszky
1830	Absolutism Ends in France	Richard Lodge\| \|Alphonse Lamartine

Year	Title	Author(s)
1837	Abd-el-Kader and France’s Conquest of Algeria	Edgar Sanderson
1838	Photography Invented	William Jerome Harrison
1846	Neptune Discovered	Sir Oliver Lodge
1848	The February 1848 Revolution In France	François P. G. Guizot, and Henriette Guizot de Witt
1851	The Coup D’etat of Louis Napoleon	Alexis De Tocqueville
1855	Capture of Sevastopol Ends Crimean War	Edward B. Hamley\| \|Evelyn Wood
1859	The Second War of Italian Independence	Pietro Orsi
1867	Mexico Rejects Maximilian	Charles A. Fyffe\| \|Felix Salm-Salm
1869	The Suez Canal Opens	Gardiner Greene Hubbard
1870	Battle of Sedan	Helmuth von Moltke\| \|Otto von Bismark
1870	The Third Republic Established	Jules Favre
1871	German Siege of Paris	Charles F. Horne
1871	The 1871 Paris Commune	Gabriel Hanotaux
1873	Communist International 1864-1873	Thomas Kirkup
1882	France Takes Vietnam	Sir Robert Kennaway Douglas
1898	Meeting at Fashoda	Winston S. Churchill
1906	France Separates Church and State	Émile Combes\| \|\| John Ireland\| \| Henry H. Sparling
1912	Alexis Carrel Transplants Blood Vessels and Organ	R. Legendre\| \|Genevieve Grandcourt
1912	Militarism Before World War I	Norman Angell\| \|Sir Max Waechter.
1944	D-Day Summary (infographic)	Corey Truman
1959	Loretta Young’s Crisis	Jack Le Moine

Special Projects

Year	Title	Author(s)
	France in Canada, Volume 1: Pioneers of France in the New World	Francis Parkman
	France in Canada, Volume 2: The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century	Francis Parkman
	France’s Wars Series	Jack Le Moine

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