Napoleon marries the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of the emperor Francis I

The reforming party in Spain become known as the Liberales, in the first political use of the term Liberal

The Spanish Cortes flees from the renewed French invasion and establishes itself in Cadiz

Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine

A French marshal, Jean Bernadotte, is offered the position of crown prince and heir to the Swedish throne

The British king George III, suffering from porphyria, is deemed unfit to govern and his eldest son becomes Prince Regent

A 12-year-old Dorset child, Mary Anning, discovers at Lyme Regis a 21 ft (6.4m) fossil of an icthyosaur

Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro publishes a hypothesis, about the number of molecules in gases, that becomes known as Avogadro's Law

Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from Oxford university for circulating a pamphlet with the title The Necessity of Atheism

English author Jane Austen publishes her first work in print, Sense and Sensibility, at her own expense

Masked Luddites smash machinery in night raids on factories in Nottingham

French scientist Georges Cuvier introduces scientific palaeontology with his Research on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds

Lord Castlereagh becomes British foreign secretary in Spencer Perceval's government

Britain's first primary school is established by Robert Owen at New Lanark in Scotland

The British prime minister, Spencer Perceval, is assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by John Bellingham

After the death of Perceval, Lord Liverpool begins a 15-year spell as Britain's prime minister

Napoleon launches an attack on his ally, the Russian tsar Alexander I, with an army of more than 600,000 men

The French author Stendhal serves in the French army during the invasion of Russia

Damage to US trade by British orders in council prompts war (the War of 1812) between the two nations

The Spanish Cortes in Cadiz produces a strikingly liberal new constitution for Spain

The US frigate Constitution, affectionately known as 'Old Ironsides', wins successes against British warships in the Atlantic

The Russian army under Marshal Kutuzov confronts the advancing French at Borodino, and though defeated makes a successful withdrawal

After victory at Borodino, Napoleon enters Moscow to find the city abandoned and burning

The first two cantos are published of Byron's largely autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bringing him immediate fame

Napoleon begins the retreat from Moscow, in arctic conditions and harried by guerrilla attacks