Page 25 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

Napoleon

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Newton, Isaac
Napoleon
Nkrumah, Kwame
(1769–1821)
Nonviolence French leader
North Atlantic Treaty
apoleon Bonaparte rose from relative obscurity to
Organization
Nbecome the ruler of almost all Europe. He is also
Nubians remembered for breaking new ground in promoting

equality, religious freedom, education reform, and intro-
ducing a new civil code, the Code Napoléon.
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, and graduated
from a French military school as an artillery lieutenant.
In 1793 he scored his first victory as an officer in the
French Revolutionary army, destroying ten British ships
in the harbor at Toulon. He was then made brigadier gen-
eral, at age twenty-four. On 5 October 1795, Napoleon’s
ultimate triumph of force was foreshadowed when he
used artillery to fire upon a Royalist mob—his famous
“whiff of grapeshot”—to protect the Revolutionary gov-
ernment in Paris. Now a national hero, he was promoted
to commander-in-chief of the French forces in Italy.
Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais in 1796
and immediately left to lead the French army in Italy,
which was fighting the Austrians. He was soon victorious
and formed the Cisalpine Republic out of part of north-
ern Italy.
When an invasion of England proved impossible, in
1798 Napoleon was sent to invade British-controlled
Egypt. He was generally successful in his land battles, but
Britain’s Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson destroyed his
fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Nonetheless, the discovery
of the Rosetta Stone and the many scholars, artists, and