Napoleon assembles an invasion fleet against Britain, where Martello towers are hastily built in preparation

Napoleon sends an ill-judged message to royalist opponents when he orders the seizure and execution of the young duke of Enghien

The independence of Haiti from France is proclaimed by a new black ruler calling himself the emperor Jacques I

Napoleon has himself proclaimed emperor of France by the Senate

Napoleon crowns himself emperor of the French in a magnificent ceremony in Notre Dame

Napoleon announces that Holland is to be a kingdom, with his 28-year-old brother Louis Bonaparte on the throne

Napoleon imposes his Continental System, designed to strangle Britain's trade

French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres moves to Rome and lives there for 18 years

To counteract Napoleon's Continental System, Britain passes orders in council penalizing any vessel trading into French-held ports

Napoleon and the Russian tsar Alexander I meet on a raft at Tilsit and set about carving up Europe

Thomas Jefferson puts an embargo on US exports, hoping to damage the economy of France and Britain

Louis-Napoleon, the future Napoleon III, is born in Paris, the son of Napoleon's brother Louis and of Josephine's daughter Hortense

French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac shows that when gases combine they do so in simple ratios by volume (later known as his Law of Combining Volumes)

Napoleon, in response to his excommunication, has pope Pius VII arrested and kept in captivity in northern Italy and then France

French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck argues in Zoological Philosophy that creatures can inherit acquired characteristics

Napoleon arranges to have his marriage to Josephine annulled so that he can marry the daughter of an emperor

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

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

Marie Louise gives birth to a boy, Napoleon's longed-for heir, to be known as the King of Rome

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

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

Napoleon arrives back in Paris ahead of the remains of his army, after losing half a million men in the Russian campaign

The king of Prussia, Frederick William III, changes sides and declares war on France

In a treaty with Russia and Prussia at Reichenbach, Austria agrees to declare war on France