On September 1, 1715, the sun set on the longest-reigning monarch in history. “The story of Louis XIV’s death is worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy,” writes the Palace of Versailles. His health started to decline on August 10 1715 upon his return from a hunting trip…
Read MoreOn August 22, 1791, “The Pearl of the Antilles,” the French colony of Saint Domingue erupted in flames. The Haitain Revolution had begun as the enslaved held in bondage on the world wealthiest colony fought for their freedom. Spanning from 1791 to 1804, The…
Read MoreOn August 8, 1945 the United States, England, France and the Soviet Union joined together and signed the London Agreement, a new treaty to impose justice against the Nazis for their crimes. For two months during the summer of 1945, Robert H. Jackson and…
Read MoreOn July 15, 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s military campaign in Egypt, a French soldier stumbled across a huge black stone with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. Made of black basalt with the writing of an ancient…
Read MoreOn July 14, 1789, during the early stages of the French Revolution, a state prison on the east side of Paris, the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The event marked a turning point in the history of France. The British…
Read MoreThe late 1790s marked a turning point in American foreign policy, and nothing tested the fledgling country more than the XYZ Affair. Rooted in a failed negotiation with France, the incident triggered a series of events that dramatically altered the course of the French…
Read MoreOn June 26, 1945, the world came together to create the United Nations, marking a pivotal moment in international diplomacy. In the auditorium of the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations gathered together in hopes of creating an organization that would…
Read MoreOn June 17, 1885, Lady Liberty arrived in the United States. Aboard the French frigate Isère and stuffed in 214 crates that held the disassembled statue, nearly a quarter-of-a-million onlookers crowded in Battery Park in New York City, along with nearly a hundred boats in the…
Read MoreOn June 12, 1429, Joan of Arc achieved her first offensive military victory, winning a battle near the small town of Jargeau on the southern bank of the Loire River in central France. By the end of 1428, writes historians, “the English and their…
Read MoreOn June 8, 1794, the streets of Paris and other French cities thrummed with an extraordinary energy for one of the weirder aspects of the French Revolution. Citizens gathered en masse to witness an event orchestrated by one of the French Revolution’s most enigmatic…
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