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Coup of 18 Brumaire
The Coup of 18 Brumaire (9-10 November 1799) was a bloodless coup d'état in France that overthrew the government of the French Directory and replaced it with the French Consulate. The coup brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power and, in the view...

Definition
Pindar
Pindar (c. 518 to c. 448/7 BCE) was an ancient Greek lyric poet, probably the greatest of his time. His works have been divided into 17 books of different types of poetry, but only those containing 44 choral victory songs composed for the...

Article
Rock Drawings of Valcamonica
The rock drawings of Valcamonica are prehistoric petroglyphs carved in the glacier-polished, grey-purple Permian sandstone of the Camonica valley that extends for 90 km in the Italian provinces of Brescia and Bergamo in Lombardy. The name...

Definition
French Consulate
The French Consulate was the government of the First French Republic from 10 November 1799 to 18 May 1804, spanning the last four years of the Republic's existence. Headed by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) as First Consul, the Consulate served...

Article
Excerpts from What is the Third Estate
What is the Third Estate? was a pamphlet published by Abbè Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) in January 1789, months before the start of the French Revolution (1789-1799). The pamphlet concerns the place of the Third Estate (commoners) within...

Article
France’s 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State
The 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State was enacted as the climax of decades of conflict between monarchists and anticlerical Republicans who viewed Christianity as a permanent obstacle to the social development of the Republic. The...

Definition
War of the Second Coalition
The War of the Second Coalition (1798-1802), part of the broader French Revolutionary Wars, was the second attempt by an alliance of major European powers to defeat Revolutionary France. The Second Coalition, which included Russia, Austria...

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What is the Third Estate?
What is the Third Estate? was a seminal pamphlet written by Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sièyes (1748-1836) in the months preceding the Estates-General of 1789. The pamphlet argues that the Third Estate (commoners) constitutes an entire nation itself...

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Abbé Sieyès, as a Member of the National Convention
Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) as a member of the National Convention during the French Revolution (1789-99), engraving by François Bonneville, 1797.
Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris.

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Richard III & Henry VII, Stained Glass Window
A stained glass window showing the two rivals for the throne of England at the end of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487 CE). In 1485 CE at the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III of England (r. 1483-85 CE) was defeated and killed while the victor...