Corsica is sold to France by the republic of Genoa

Napoleon Bonaparte is born a French citizen in Ajaccio, in Corsica, the son of a local lawyer

The 10-year-old Napoleon is admitted as a student in a military college at Brienne, near Troyes

Napoleon graduates from his military college and is commissioned in an artillery regiment

Stationed at Valence, Napoleon becomes president of the local Jacobin club and makes radical speeches against the nobility and clergy

France declares war on the Austrian emperor, an event that plunges Europe into more than 20 years of conflict

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

The National Convention abolishes royalty in France and establishes the first republic

Napoleon is appointed commander of French republican forces besieging royalists, supported by an Anglo-Spanish fleet, in Toulon

Napoleon's soldiers capture Toulon and his artillery fire forces the Anglo-Spanish fleet to withdraw from the harbour

Louis XVI is guillotined after a majority of just one in the national Convention has voted for death without delay

Britain joins other European nations in war against France, mainly in naval engagements in the West Indies and Atlantic

Civil war breaks out in Corsica and Napoleon's family flees to France

France becomes the first nation to attempt national conscription, calling up bachelors between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five

The Terror begins in republican France, with executions rising to more than 3000 in December

The Netherlands, forced by invasion into the French camp, is transformed into the Batavian republic

The 26-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte comes to public attention for his part in saving the Convention in Paris from an assault by rebels

Napoleon marries Josephine de Beauharnais, widow of Alexandre de Beauharnais, guillotined in 1794

In the armistice of Cherasco the king of Sardinia cedes to France his territories of Savoy and Nice

After two rapid victories in north Italy, Napoleon marches on Turin and the king of Sardinia asks for an armistice

Napoleon creates in northern Italy the Cisalpine Republic, formed from occupied territores including the papal states of Bologna and Ferrara

Napoleon changes the spelling of his family name from Buonaparte to the more French-seeming Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte takes command of the French army of Italy, with astonishingly successful results

Napoleon marches against Vienna and is only two days from the city when the emperor requests an armistice