France Timeline of Events

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France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...

Timeline of Events

1739

1.1.1739

Bouvet Island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.

1740

10.20.1740

Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honour the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins.

1744

9.30.1744

France and Spain defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo.

1746

6.16.1746

War of Austrian Succession: Austria and Sardinia defeat a Franco-Spanish army at the Battle of Piacenza.

1754

5.28.1754

French and Indian War: in the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1756

5.18.1756

The Seven Years' War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.

1757

11.5.1757

Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great defeats the allied armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Rossbach.

1758

7.8.1758

French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.

7.25.1758

Seven Years' War: the island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken.

11.25.1758

French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control. Fort Pitt is built nearby and it grows into modern Pittsburgh.

1759

9.13.1759

Battle of the Plains of Abraham: British defeat French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War, known in the United States as the French and Indian War.

1761

1.16.1761

The British capture Pondicherry, India from the French.

1763

2.10.1763

French and Indian War: The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.

1770

5.16.1770

14-year old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes king of France.

1774

5.10.1774

Louis XVI becomes King of France.

1776

10.26.1776

Benjamin Franklin departs from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.

1778

2.6.1778

American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.

2.14.1778

The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS ''Ranger'', commanded by John Paul Jones.

3.4.1778

The Continental Congress votes to ratify both the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance with France. The two treaties are the first entered into by the United States government.

1779

5.13.1779

War of Bavarian Succession: Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiate an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receives the part of its territory that was taken from it (the Innviertel).

1781

1.6.1781

In the Battle of Jersey, the British defeat the last attempt by France to invade Jersey.

9.28.1781

American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.

1783

1.20.1783

The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the Revolutionary War.

6.22.1783

A poisonous cloud caused by the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland reaches Le Havre in France.

1785

1.7.1785

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.

1.7.1785

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.

1786

8.8.1786

Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr Michel-Gabriel Paccard.

1789

5.5.1789

In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time since 1614.

6.17.1789

In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.

8.4.1789

In France members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.

1790

3.4.1790

France is divided into 83 ''départements'', cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.

7.12.1790

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is passed in France by the National Constituent Assembly.

1791

10.1.1791

First session of the French Legislative Assembly.

11.21.1791

Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic.

1792

4.20.1792

France declares war on Austria, the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.

4.25.1792

''La Marseillaise'' (French national anthem) is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

4.28.1792

France invades the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.

5.15.1792

War of the First Coalition: France declares war on Kingdom of Sardinia.

7.25.1792

The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French Royal Family is harmed.

9.11.1792

The Hope Diamond is stolen along with other French crown jewels when six men break into the house used to store them.

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