The German forces reached the outskirts of the French capital on 15 September and General Helmuth von Moltke, the commander of the Prussian army, gave the order to begin surrounding the city.
On September 18, five days after it began, the fire was finally brought under control thanks to calmer winds and a fortuitously timed rain shower that helped the troops working to extinguish the flames.
The battle was fought against the French army of King Philip VI and led to the port of Calais becoming an English enclave for over two centuries.
Over 800 resistance fighters died before the Free French 2nd Armoured Division led by Captain Raymond Dronne arrived just before midnight on 24 August. On 25 August the US 4th Infantry Division entered the city.
Slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola began the Haitian Revolution.
Approximately 800 people on the king’s side were killed and Paris was put in the hands of the revolutionaries.
French aviator Louis Charles Joseph Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft.
The Battle of Castillon, considered to be the last battle of the Hundred Years’ War, was fought between France and England.
The Bastille had long been a symbol of tyranny as a place for the imprisonment of people without trial, but when it was stormed it only contained seven prisoners.
The radical French journalist Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday.
28th June 2015
11th November 2022
11th November 2022
1st September 2018
