Early Modern
Galvani and Animal Electricity (1791): Frog Legs and Nerves
Galvani showed that electricity makes muscles contract, founding electrophysiology and provoking the debate that led Volta to invent the battery.
Region
Europe
Early Modern
Battle of Valmy (1792): The Cannonade That Saved the Revolution
French victory; the Prussian advance on Paris was halted and the invading army soon withdrew from France.
Early Modern
Storming of the Tuileries (1792): Fall of the French Monarchy
The palace was captured, the King was suspended and imprisoned, and the monarchy was abolished six weeks later.
Early Modern
Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
The book became a founding text of modern feminism, arguing that women's apparent inferiority came from lack of education rather than nature.
Early Modern
Assassination of Marat (1793): Charlotte Corday and the Bathtub
Marat died almost instantly; Corday was guillotined four days later, and Marat was turned into a revolutionary martyr.
Early Modern
War in the Vendée (1793-1796): Royalist Revolt in Western France
The revolt was crushed with great loss of life; estimates of the dead run to well over 100,000, and the war left a lasting divide in French memory.
Early Modern
Execution of Marie Antoinette (1793): The Last Queen of France
The former queen was condemned after a two-day trial and guillotined the same day, becoming one of the best-known victims of the Terror.
Early Modern
Reign of Terror (1793-1794): Robespierre and the Guillotine
Around 17,000 people were officially sentenced to death and many more died in prison or summary killings before the Terror ended with Robespierre's fall.
Early Modern
Execution of Louis XVI (1793): Trial and Death of the French King
The former king was guillotined, the French Republic was committed to regicide and the war with Europe's monarchies widened within weeks.
Early Modern
Macartney Embassy (1793): Britain's Mission to Qing China
The Qianlong Emperor rejected every British request, and the embassy returned home without a treaty or improved trading rights.
Early Modern
Fall of Robespierre (1794): The Thermidorian Reaction Begins
Robespierre and his closest allies were outlawed and guillotined, ending the Reign of Terror and opening the Thermidorian Reaction.
Early Modern
Kościuszko Uprising (1794): Poland's Last Stand Before Partition
The uprising was crushed by Russia and Prussia, and the Third Partition of 1795 removed Poland-Lithuania from the map of Europe.