istoryworld
Events relating to evolution
The French finance minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, is dismissed when his proposed reforms meet aristocratic opposition
Delegates meeting in Philadelphia agree a final draft for a US consitution, to be submitted to the states for ratification
The Federalist Papers, in support of the Constitution and mainly written by Alexander Hamilton, begin appearing in New York
The constitution of the United States is ratified by the states, but it is immediately agreed that amendments will be desirable
The ministers of Louis XVI reluctantly announce that the estates general will meet in 1789, for the first time since 1614
George Washington, unanimously elected first president of the United States, is inaugurated on Wall Street in New York
A pamphlet published in France by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès asks a challenging question, What is the Third Estate?
A left-wing political club begins to meet in a Jacobin convent in Paris, thus becoming known as the Jacobins
Delegates of the Third Estate swear an oath in a tennis court at Versailles, pledging themselves not to disperse until France has a constitution
The painter Jacques-Louis David sketches the events in the Versailles tennis court
An excited Paris mob liberates the seven prisoners held in the forbidding fortress of the Bastille
Parisians force their way into the palace at Versailles and insist on Louis XVI and his royal family accompanying them back to Paris
French doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposes a decapitation machine as a more humane form of capital punishment
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel
Louis XVI and his family attempt to flee from Paris to the border but are captured at Varennes
Stationed at Valence, Napoleon becomes president of the local Jacobin club and makes radical speeches against the nobility and clergy
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
France declares war on the Austrian emperor, an event that plunges Europe into more than 20 years of conflict
In a first demonstration of the gullotine, a highwayman is beheaded in a Paris square
A French officer, Rouget de Lisle, writes a stirring anthem for France, soon to be known as the Marseillaise
The Brazilian rebel Tiradentes is beheaded in public in Rio de Janeiro as a warning to would-be revolutionaries
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man
A French revolutionary army defeats the Austrians and Prussians at Valmy, and thus saves Paris from attack
After their success at Valmy, French republican armies overrun much of the Austrian Netherlands
During four September days, thugs are encouraged to massacre some 1400 aristocrats and priests held in Paris prisons
