The Franklin Files

73 The war in Judea ends with Roman soldiers overrunning Masada. The Essenes disappear. Some Jews are taken away as slaves. Rome abolishes Judea as a homeland of the Jews. Christians see the demise of Jews as God's punishment, and Jews put into their synagogue liturgy an anathema against Christians.

132 to 135 A rebellion begins in Jerusalem, led by Simeon ben Kosiba, known by his admirers as Bar Kokhba (Son of a Star). The foremost rabbi and Judaic scholar, Akiva, has hailed Simeon as another King David the conqueror, sent by God - in other words, the Messiah. Perhaps as many as

580,000 Jews die fighting, including Simeon ben Kosiba. Emperor Hadrian bans Jews from Jerusalem for ten years. The Romans glut the slave markets with Jewish captives. The prohibition against circumcision is renewed and celebration of the Jewish festivals, observance of the Sabbath, study of the Torah and possession of a scroll of Jewish Law became punishable by death.

321 Constantine makes the day of the sun god Sol Invictus (Sunday) a holy day and a day of rest for Christians.

324 Constantine defeats the eastern emperor and becomes emperor of all the empire. He prefers the more Christianized eastern half of the empire and founds a new capital in the east called New Rome, eventually to be known as Constantinople (in the 1900s to be changed to Istanbul).

325 Christianity is receiving state support, new churches, more wealth and more elaborate rituals. Christianity's bishops defer to the authority of Constantine, who wants to heal divisions within the Church. Constantine presides over the Church's first ecumenical (general) council, at Nicea, to decide the nature of Jesus Christ. Bishop Arius and Arian Christianity lose. The doctrine of the Trinity is accepted.

333 Constantine widens the gap between Christianity and Judaism, decreeing that Christians of Jewish heritage will either break all ties with Judaism or be executed.

363 Constantine's grandson becomes emperor. Disillusioned by bloodshed within the family of Constantine, and a secret admirer of Hellenistic culture, he is to be known as Julian the Apostate. Lacking the hostility felt by Christians toward Jews, he rescinds a law that forbids marriage between Christians and Jews. He rescinds the law that bans Jews from entering Jerusalem, and he abolishes privileges that have been bestowed upon the Christian clergy.

367 Emperor Julian is killed while fighting an army of the Sassanid Empire. Christians rejoice at news of his death and express their belief that Julian's death was the work of God. The Sassanid king, Shapur II, is devoted to Zoroastrianism and has been attempting to exterminate his empire's Christians.

395 Christian emperors have been persecuting pagans, Jews and Arian Christians. Christian mobs have been attacking what are described as works of the devil. Pagan temples have been robbed of their treasures. Libraries have been destroyed, causing the disappearance of many writings. Emperor Theodosius, who has described heretics as insane, dies. Augustine is named bishop of Hippo (in North Africa).

533 Getting the world ready for the Second Coming of Christ, Emperor Justinian sends his army to reconquer what had been parts of the Roman Empire. In North Africa he defeats the Vandals, who are Arian Christians, and he conquers territory and souls for the Church.

1000 For centuries Christians have been expecting the Second Coming of Jesus - the Day of Judgment. Giving importance to a round figure such as 1000, and assuming that Jesus was born in the exactly one thousand years earlier, many believe this is the year that it will happen. The passing of the year leaves believers thanking God the postponement of Armageddon.

1022 Putting people to death for heresy has begun in Europe, fourteen said to have been burned to death at the city of Orleans on order of the French king, Robert the Pious.

1121 The Roman Catholic Church is more bureaucratically organized than it was in previous centuries. Centuries before it had no problem with common people believing in pagan herbal magic, holy trees and springs, fairies and the like, but now the Church feels more threatened in its role as arbiter of truth. Literacy had been rising. Translations of ancient Greeks are circulating. Ideas are spreading with the increase in the movement of trade and people within Europe. The Church is now concerned about heresy. The Concordat of Worms condemns the popular lecturer and writer, Peter Abelard. And later this year the uncle of Abelard's wife, Heloise, leads a group of men who attack and castrate Abelard.

1128 The Catholic Church sanctions the Knights Templar, of Jerusalem, to guard the road between the eastern Mediterranean port of Acre, held by the crusaders, and the holy city of Jerusalem. The Knights Templar have grown from an a few crusaders reputed to have been fierce warriors. They have taken vows (promises to God) of poverty and chastity.

1154 The Templars have given up their poverty. With another Christian-crusader order in Jerusalem, the Hospitallier, they have become owners of extensive real estate. They are also the bankers of Jerusalem. They deal in exports and handle the 6,000 or so pilgrims that visit the Holy Land annually and are trusted to refrain from selling pilgrims into slavery, as have some Italian merchants.

1212 Thousands of children with a few adults and clerics, fired up by preaching against heretics, start for Jerusalem to rescue the Holy Land from Muslims. They are deficient in money and organization but believe that as children they are favored by God and could work miracles that adults cannot. Before the year is over it ends in disaster. Many children die or are sold into slavery.

1296 A conflict over power and wealth erupts between the king of France and the Pope. King Philip IV of France has continued to tax Church property, taxes that were originally intended to finance the last Crusade. Pope Boniface issues the bull Clericis laicos, which asserts the Church's authority and rights vis-à-vis secular heads of state. Philip threatens to prevent the Church from collecting taxes and tithes within France. Pope Boniface backs down. England's king, Edward I, wins a concession from the Pope similar to the one that the Pope makes for France.

1303 Church power is in decline. Concerned about kings taxing church property, Pope Boniface VIII has issued a papal decree, Unam Sanctam, to maintain Church authority over kings. King Philip IV of France (r. 1285-1314) fears that he will be excommunicated and sends men who seize Boniface from one of his palaces. Boniface is rescued but shaken, and his dies soon afterward.

1305 French influence in the College of Cardinals results in the selection of the Bishop of Bordeaux, who becomes Pope Clement V. People in Rome, opposed to a Frenchman as pope, riot.

1306 King Philip IV, of France, has been extorting money from Jews. He needs money to pursue empire. He seizes the belongings of some Jews and expels them from his realm.

1307 Muslims have driven "Crusaders" from the Middle East, including the order called the Templars. Templars have arrived in France. They are wealthy, and King Philip accuses them of magic and heresy - the only way he can lawfully seize Templar assets. For good measure the Templars are accused also of sodomy and of being in league with the Muslims. Philip has the Templars arrested on Friday the 13th (giving Friday the13th its reputation as a day of bad luck). Some Templars are

1310 The Knights of St. John (a crusading order established in Jerusalem in 1113) have fled the Middle East and they conquer the island of Rhodes.

1316 Pope Clement V has died. After two years of disagreement among cardinals, he is succeeded at Avignon by Pope John XII, who was born in France. John XII is to reign eighteen years and to levy heavy taxes on Europe's Christians in an attempt to regain the Church's independence and prestige.

1322 Pope John XXII declares as heresy the opinion among Franciscans that Christ and his apostles held no property.

1348 The black death reaches France, Denmark, Norway and Britain, striking at a population weakened by nearly two generations of malnutrition. Around one-third of the people in affected areas are to die.

1350 Some Europeans are blaming Jews for the plague. Some are blaming the rich and some the Catholic Church. The belief in witchcraft is revitalized. Believing that the end of the world is at hand, some groups engage in frenzied bacchanals and orgies. Those called Flagellants believe that the plague is the judgment of God on sinful mankind. Walking across countryside, men and women flog one another. They preach that anyone doing this for thirty-three days will be cleansed of all sin - one day for every year that Christ lived. The Church is on guard against creative, heretical theology and Pope Clement VI condemns the movement.

1361 The black death reappears in England and ravages Europe. The survivors of the first wave of Black Death are better able to resist the disease than were people in general during the first wave in 1348, and the second wave of plague is less severe than the first wave.

1410 A Germanic force, the Teutonic Knights, are trying to gain control of Poland. The knights are allied with the kings of Bohemia and Hungary. Their army has volunteer "crusaders" and numbers around 27,000. An army of 39,000 fighting for the Polish king, Wladyslaw Jagiello, includes Lithuanians, Ruthenians and Tatars in addition to Poles, and they defeat the Germans. The Teutonic Knights decline in power and Eastern Europe does not become a German colony.

1413 In England, followers of John Wyclif, dead since 1384, hold that the Bible is the only rule of faith. They appeal to the Catholic clergy to return to the simple life of the early Church. They oppose war, the doctrine of transubstantiation, confession, and images in worship. They march on London, and Henry V, fearing social disorder, suppresses the movement.

1431 Some Englishmen see Joan of Arc as truly a witch and as an agent of the devil - a common response to adversity in this age. Joan is captured. The English turn her over to ecclesiastic authorities - the Inquisition - and at the French town of Rouen <map05-eu.htm>, then under English rule, Joan is burned at the stake.

1439 Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church leaders agree to reunify these two branches of Christianity. The Russians do not agree and the Russian Orthodox Church is to remain independent of the Vatican in Rome.

1456 Judges and commissioners in the archbishop's palace in the city of Rouen declare that Joan of Arc was innocent of the charges that led to her execution - after nineteen years of appeal and almost one year of hearings. The Archbishop declares the case ended.

1461 Two families, both descended from King Edward III (who reigned from 1327 to 1377 and was of the Plantagenet dynasty) have been at war for years. One family is the House of York the other the House of Lancaster. This is the War of the Roses. Edward, from the House of York, defeats the Lancastrians at Mortimor's Cross. He is proclaimed king and ascends the throne as Edward IV.

1480 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain employ the Spanish Inquisition to investigate whether converted Jews are secretly clinging to Judaism.

1494 Kings were doing what kings had been doing for ages: pursuing wealth, territorial expansion and control over people. This year the agent of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus, begins using people of the Caribbean as slaves.

1509 A Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, writes In Praise of Folly. He is a devout Catholic who has been bothered by what he calls absurd superstitions of most of the Christians of his day. He favors the translation of the Bible from Latin to local languages so that the masses can read it, and he believes that common people have the capacity to understand Christianity as well as do priests.

1545 In France, attacks to the Catholic clergy have occurred. Troops are sent against the Protestant heresy in a cluster of towns. About twenty towns are destroyed and about 3,000 Protestant men, women and children killed.

1551 In France, the works of Martin Luther, John Calvin and others considered heretics are prohibited. In the cites of Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Agners, various heretics and those selling forbidden books have been burned at the stake. And another massacre of Protestant occurs. More than 3,000 Protestants are to be reported as having been killed, 763 houses, 89 stables and 31 warehouses destroyed.

1553 Henry's successor, Queen Mary, re-establishes Roman Catholicism as England's state religion.

1554 Queen Mary marries a fellow Catholic - Spain's Hapsburg prince, Philip, eleven years her junior. The marriage gives Spain influence in England's affairs.

1555 Philip's father, the Hapsburg monarch, ruler of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, concludes the Peace of Augsburg with a league of Protestant German princes (the Schmalkaldic League). The Peace of Augsburg recognizes the right of each prince in the Holy Roman Empire to choose between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism and to impose the religion of his choice on his subjects.

1558 Queen Mary dies and is succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth re-establishes Anglican Protestantism as the state religion.

1559 Prince Philip is now Philip II, of Spain. He appoints his half sister, Margaret, as regent of the Netherlands. She pursues Philip's order to wipe out Protestantism there, and she tries, exercising the common belief that it was a king's prerogative to decide how his subjects should worship. Margaret raises taxes in the Netherland to finance the intervention, and higher taxes add to the hostility towards Habsburg rule.

1560 Europe is still suffering from periodic epidemics and famines. One-half of all infants born alive are dying before twelve months - as are the poorest countries today. The wealthy might live to between 48 and 56, and the poor, who did not eat as well, might live to 40.

1563 The Council of Trent, begun in 1545 is concluded. It was decided that tradition is to be judged co-equal to scripture as a source of spiritual knowledge, and only the Church is to be considered as having the right to interpret the Bible. The clergy is ordered to be more disciplined and was to have higher educational standards. Clerics who kept concubines are to give them up. Bishops are required to live in their own diocese. They are to have almost absolute jurisdiction there and to visit every religious house in their jurisdiction at least once every two years. Every diocese is to have a seminary for educating and training the clergy, and those who are poor are to be given preference in admission. Efforts are made toward giving instruction to the laity, especially the uneducated, and sermons are allowed in the language of common people. The sale of indulgences and Church offices is condemned, and so too is nepotism. And music in church is to fit with the occasion of solemnity, matching a new era of choral music and composition.

1568 Protestants in the Netherlands, led by Prince William of Orange, revolt against rule by the Catholic monarch, Philip II. The Eighty Years' War begins

1572 On August 24, St. Bartholmew's Day, about 3,000 Protestants in Paris are massacred. Across France within three days approximately 20,000 Huguenots are executed. Catholics across Europe rejoice and Protestants mourn and express anger.

1581 Seven northern provinces of the Netherlands, including Holland, renounce their allegiance to Philip II. They form the United Provinces of the Netherlands. The Eighty Years' War continues.

1584 King Philip II has offered a reward of 25,000 crowns for the death of Prince William of Orange, and has called William a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race." William is assassinated. The Dutch consider William the father of their country and are saddened.

1587 Philip II of Spain has been plotting to have the Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, replace Elizabeth I on the throne of England. Mary has been a rallying point for all in England opposed to Elizabeth. Elizabeth solves her problem with Mary by having her beheaded.

1588 Upon hearing of Mary's execution, Pope Sixtus V promises to pay Philip II one million gold ducats if his troops invade England. An English fleet confronts the Spanish armada of more than a hundred ships and 30,000 soldiers, heading for an invasion. Elizabeth's smaller r ships scatter Philip's armada. Only about 65 of Philip's ships make it back to port.

1592 Pope Clement VIII states that "All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate peoples into a state of poverty, especially farmers, working-class people, and the very poor."

1594 The Protestant Bourbon King of Navarre, Henry, has converted to Catholicism in order to extend his power to Paris. He is crowned King Henry IV, France's first Bourbon monarch.

1598 France's wars of religion are over. Tolerance between Catholics and Protestants is proclaimed in the Edict of Nantes by Henry IV.

1600 Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake.

1600 Queen Elizabeth of England charters the British East India Company to compete with the Dutch, who control the trade in nutmeg from the Banda Islands.

1603 A frail Queen Elizabeth dies at age 69. She is succeeded by a Calvinist and devout Presbyterian, King James VI of Scotland, eldest son of Elizabeth's cousin, Mary I, Queen of Scots. James becomes James I, King of England, Ireland and Scotland.

1604 James dislikes England's Puritans but he agrees to their request for an official translation of the Bible - to be known as the Authorized King James Bible - in place of three other versions: the Geneva Bible, the Great Bible (an English language translation authorized by Henry VIII) and the (Anglican) Bishop's Bible.

1605 A plot by extremist Catholics to blow up the Britain's Parliament fails. The perpetrators are hanged

1611 Galileo exhibits the wonders of the telescope to the pontifical court. He tries to produce scriptural confirmation of the view that the earth revolves around the sun, but he is rebuffed.

1625 Fearing the power of the Catholic monarchs, the King of Denmark, a Lutheran, joins the Thirty Years' War on the side of the Protestants.

1629 In the Holy Roman Empire, hundreds are being burned as witches.

1632 Galileo publishes his ideas about the universe. Intellectuals across Europe applaud. The Church prohibits further sales of the book, and Galileo is ordered to appear before the Inquisition in Rome.
1636 France, a largely Catholic country but allied with the Dutch and the Swedes, enters the Thirty Years' War against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.

1642 King Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, son of King James, has been ruling since 1625 and is considered too friendly towards Catholicism. He is in conflict with his Calvinist and Puritan subjects and with Parliament. Civil war has erupted. On one side is the king and his army, on the other is Parliament and its army.

1648 European powers fighting the Thirty Years' War, are exhausted. Germany has lost at least a third of its population. A negotiated settlement called the Peace of Westphalia ends the war, except that France and Spain continue their war for ten more years. Habsburg predominance in Europe is ended - replaced by French power and diplomacy. The war ends with a realization of the need for more tolerance between Catholics and Protestants. The settlement speaks of a "Christian and universal peace, and a perpetual, true and sincere amity."

1648 With the peace of Westphalia, the 80 Years' War between Spain's Habsburg monarchy and the Dutch ends, Spain recognizing Dutch independence.

1649 In Britain, King Charles I and his army have been defeated. Charles is beheaded. England is a republic, a commonwealth without a House of Lords and run by the victors of the civil war - parliament. Parliament sends the Puritan Oliver Cromwell to Ireland to subdue rebellious Catholics. He massacres the populations of Drogheda and Wexford.

1653 A war begins between the English and Dutch, inspired by commercial competition.

1658 Cromwell dies and the English are relieved. They have had their fill of Puritanism.

1665 Another war between the English and Dutch has begun. English soldiers seize the town of New Amsterdam and rename it New York after the king's brother, the Duke of York.

1665 Two-thirds of London is evacuated to avoid the Black Plague, but nearly 70,000 die of the disease in one week.

1666 It is an era of big city fires. London is a city of mostly thatched roofs or timber and pitch. Much of London burns. Seeing a possible connection between the fire and God's displeasure, authorities began an official investigation into atheism in London, and the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, burns some of his writings to hide evidence that could be used against him. The city is to be rebuilt with brick and stone and institutionalized fire fighting developed.

1681 In London a woman is flogged for the crime of having become involved in politics.

1688 Hostility to Catholicism and to King James II results in a rebellion against his rule. Parliament has invited a European royal, William of Orange, to rule. William lands with an army and defeats the army of James II - whose overthrow is called the Glorious Revolution.

1689 Parliament creates a Bill of Rights and the Toleration Act. Freedom of speech is guaranteed. People have the right to petition government. They are to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. They are not to be compelled to become members of the Church of England.

1689 The philosopher John Locke returns to England from Holland. He gives conscious ideology to Whig liberalism. He rejects church authority in matters of philosophy and science. He has advocated that churches be voluntary societies rather than appendages of higher authority associated with the state, as has been the Anglican Church. He rejects political power derived from the authority of God, as in rule by divine right of the old monarchies. He is afraid of the passions of the masses and advocates religious tolerance. Not quite a century later his ideas would be a part of the constitution created by the American Revolution.

1701 The last Habsburg king of Spain dies childless and without an heir. The War of Spanish Succession follows. England, the Dutch Republic and the Holy Roman Emperor oppose the king of France also becoming the king of Spain, and they form an anti-French alliance.

1701 The Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, Joseph I, gives permission to the Elector of Brandenburg to be crowned Frederick I, King of Prussia. A new and powerful state under Hohenzollern kings is in the making.

1702 The recent death of Sweden's king has encouraged Denmark, Russia and Poland to challenge Sweden's hegemony in the Baltic Sea area. The Great Northern War begins. Sweden's young new king, Charles XII, demonstrates his power by leading an army into Poland, routing a combined German and Polish force and putting onto the throne in Poland a king of his choosing: Stanislaus Leszczynski, who becomes Stanislaus I.

1702 The French and English battle at St. Augustine in Florida, the War of Spanish Succession in the Americas to be called Queen Anne's War - Anne being the Queen of England. In the Americas both sides use Indians as allies. An Anglo-Dutch fleet destroys a Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Spain, capturing a fortune in silver.

1713 The Treaties of Utrecht end the War of Spanish Succession and Queen Anne's War. France and Britain are exhausted, and Britain signs after fearing an alliance between Spain and Austria. The British received what they rename Nova Scotia. They also receive fur trading posts in the Hudson Bay area. Philip V, grandson of France's Bourbon king, Louis XIV, is recognized as King of Spain. Spain's loses much of its empire: Savoy getting Sicily and part of Milan, Naples, Sardinia, part of Milan, and possession of what had been the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) and passes to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI of Austria - the Spanish Netherlands becoming the Austrian Netherlands. British acquire control of Gibraltar. The French are now to view Austria as their nation's primary rival on the European continent. And with the war's end a bigger effort can be made against piracy.

1714 Some Anglican conservatives have been trying to revive the union between the state and the Church of England, fearing that if people were left free to choose their religion there would be a dramatic spread of religious sectarianism and dissent. Conservatives also believe that religious disunity is an affront to God, that it threatens the salvation of individuals and national security. Some Anglican conservatives blame crime and vice on religious disunity.

1735 Frederick William has been King of Prussia since 1713. He has reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times, encouraged frugality and work, given military commissions according to merit rather than to the highest bidder and has invented marching in step and formation in military training. He has left in place various traditional punishments branding, pinching with hot tongs, beheading, drawing and quartering, breaking on the wheel, and hanging. Infanticide is punished by sewing the offending woman into a leather bag and throwing her into a river to drown. But he removes from public squares all stakes upon which accused witches have been burned.

1748 Baron Charles Montesquieu of France, who inherited a fortune and had time to write, has another of his works, The Spirit of Laws, published. He is a liberal Catholic, admiring British institutions and John Locke. He is a critic of France's monarchical absolutism. He believes people should think for themselves. A god who directed people as if they were puppets, he says, would not have produced human intelligence. His Spirit of Laws will go into 22 editions and he will influence the creators of the U.S. Constitution.


1755 Earthquake, tsunami and fire destroys much of Lisbon and, it is said, kills over 100,000 people. People wonder how God could have allowed so much suffering. The German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz defends God, claiming that with God as the author of nature everything works out for the best, that God's wisdom is supreme.

1763 The Seven Years' War ends. Britain, Spain and France sign the Treaty of Paris and Austria and Prussia sign the Peace of Hubertusburg. Austria gains nothing. France loses possessions in the Americas and cedes to Spain the huge territory of Louisiana, including New Orleans. France agrees to pull out of India, and it cedes its colony by the Senegal River <map28-af.html> to the British. Spain acquires Cuba and the Philippines and gives up Florida, which goes to Britain.

1765 In France a twenty-eight volume encyclopedia is completed, with hundreds of thousands of articles by leading scientists and famous writers. It includes an article against slavery and the slave trade. The government has banned the book, and the Catholic Church has placed it on its index of forbidden books.

1766 The Seven Years' War left Britain in debt and its military still in the Americas, to protect the colonists from Indian uprisings. Britain expects the colonists to help with taxes to pay for its commitments in the Americas. Parliament's Stamp Act, aimed at acquiring more revenue from the colonies is resisted and rioting occurs. Parliament repeals the Stamp Act but passes the Declaratory Act, asserting its authority in the colonies " in all cases whatsoever." Colonists remain disturbed by their lack of political power and taxation without representation.

1774 Granted permission to observe the dissection of an executed woman, a small group of Edoscholars realize their understanding of human anatomy (based on Chinese theory) is wrong. What they witness corresponds to a Dutch book on anatomy owned by one of the scholars, Dr. Sugita Genpaku.

1776 George Washington stops his routine toasting of George III at the army officer dinners. A second Continental Congress meets and on July 4 declares independence. The declaration is recognized in Britain as an act of rebellion. Ranking members of the Anglican Church in the colonies remain loyal, as do many wealthy businessmen and humble farmers and shopkeepers.

1777 The French have remained neutral regarding the rebellion in Britain's colonies, but they have been supplying the rebels with guns and gunpowder. French volunteers begin joining the ranks of the revolutionaries, including a 20-year-old, the Marquis de Lafayette, who is seeking revenge for the death of his father and for France's loss of territory from the Seven Years' War.

1782 In Japan unusually bad weather damages crops. In many areas high taxes have left farmers without reserves of rice. There is famine. People forage for roots, eat cats and dogs and cannibalism occurs.

1787 France has gone deep in debt through wartime borrowing. Much of the government's annual budget goes to pay an ever increasing interest on the debt. The government is spending little for maintaining public welfare. The government would like to start taxing those privileged who have been exempt from taxation, and they do not like it. Clergy, nobles and commoners want political change.

1788 Louis XVI creates more dissatisfaction by abolishing the power of parliament to review royal edicts. There has been insufficient government planning and storage of grain for emergency shortages. A hailstorm destroys crops. France has its worst harvests in forty years. Winter food riots occur.

1788 Britain's prisons have been overcrowded, and having lost its thirteen colonies in the Americas it can no longer send convicts there. Instead it sends eleven ships with 1,372 people, including 732 of its more unruly convicts, to a place in Australia named after Lord Sydney, secretary of state for Britain's colonies.

1790 The National Assembly abolishes tariff barriers within France - which had been the moneymaking devises for local nobility. It abolishes all aristocratic and hereditary titles. Harvests have improved and many believe that God is siding with the revolution. Deputies to the National Assembly are mostly Christians, and they see the message of Jesus as supporting liberty, tolerance and against despotism. In their opinion the revolution should conform to Christian principles. They want less opulence in the Catholic Church. They decide that the government should oversee the elections of pastors and bishops, and they want clergymen to swear loyalty to this plan. Violence erupts between supporters of the revolution and defenders of the Church. About half of the clergy are to refuse to swear loyalty to the government plan.

1791 Louis has been troubled by government intrusions into church matters. People become suspicious about his loyalty to the revolution. Louis XVI attempts to flee from France. He, his queen, Marie -Antoinette, and their children are arrested at Varennes and brought back to Paris. The Constituent National Assembly suspends the king's authority until further notice. The new constitution takes effect, with the National Assembly replaced by a newly elected parliament - the Legislative Assembly - mostly youthful lawyers of moderate wealth.

1792 In France, amnesty has been offered those who fled the country and the revolution. Few return and parliament votes in favor of declaring all émigrés as plotting against the revolution - a capital offense. An ultimatum is sent to Austria, demanding the expulsion of those Frenchmen hostile to the revolution. The brother of Marie-Antoinette, Leopold II of Austria, does not cooperate. France declares war. Prussia joins Austria against France and captures Verdun just inside France. In France is war fever and people are afraid of the German invasion. Parisians go on a five-day rampage, to monasteries and from prison to prison, killing political prisoners, priests and nobles. The dead are counted at around 1,500.

1793 Louis XVI, accused of conspiring against the nation, is executed. France is proclaimed a republic. The British, Dutch and Spanish go to war against the French Revolution. In the United States, Thomas Jefferson supports France, Alexander Hamilton supports England and President Washington chooses neutrality. Jean Paul Marat, who believed in the redistribution of wealth, a dictatorship representing the poor, and a passionate supporter of terror against enemies of the revolution, is assassinated by Charlotte Corday. She believes that in killing Marat she is saving the revolution. Instead, the assassination intensifies passions and fears.

1793 Catherine the Great of Russia, Joseph of Austria, and Frederick William II of Prussia take advantage of the turmoil in France to confiscate more Polish lands, in what was called the Second Partition of Poland.

1794 On a charge of treason, ultra-leftists in Paris behead a famous scientist, the founder of modern chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier - just one of many being executed in what will be known as a reign of terror The ultra-leftists consider revolutionaries less fervent and more tolerant than they, disloyal. Fear swings revolutionaries with legislative positions against those leading the "terror." The executioners are themselves executed. - the fall of Robespierre.

1796 The war between France and other European powers continues. In Italy with his French army, Napoleon occupies Venice. City-states are no longer world powers. Some Europeans have been expecting liberation by the French, but Napoleon has been turning conquests into empire.

1796 Inoculation is tested by Edward Jenner during a smallpox epidemic in London. Jenner does not understand how the immunity system works, but he has taken scientists a step in that direction.

1798 Napoleon invades Egypt with a plan to cut Britain's trade route to India (although the Suez Canal had yet been built). A British naval force, led by Admiral Horatio Nelson, smashes the French navy at anchor at Abu Qir bay, near Alexandria, Egypt - the French losing 6,200 men as casualties and prisoners.

1799 George Washington wakes up while having difficulty breathing. He orders an employee to bleed him. A doctor arrives and bleeds him again. The theory is that bleeding releases the bad blood that causes whatever ails. Washington orders no further bleeding but is bled again. He dies.

1804 In the wartime atmosphere and as a defense against French royalty, the Senate in France votes in favor becoming Napoleon I, "Emperor of the French." Napoleon crowns himself emperor. Beethoven is enraged. He dislikes royalty and tears up the title page for his Symfonia Buonaparte, which will be known as his Symphony No.3.

1804 Spain joins Napoleon's war as an ally against the British.

1805 Russia, Austria and Sweden ally themselves with Britain.

1805 In Milan, Napoleon is crowned King of Italy. He is looking towards an invasion of England. A French fleet sails north to Spain's Atlantic port of Cadiz. Napoleon orders his French and Spanish ships out of Cadiz to do battle with the British. The British win, at the Battle of Trafalgar, frustrating Napoleon's invasion plan.

1815 At the Congress of Vienna, the British, Spain, Portugal, a politically new France, and the Netherlands are meeting to discuss the world without Napoleon, and they agree to eventually abolish the slave trade.

1821 Michael Faraday, son of a blacksmith, has overcome the conceit of aristocrats and, as a scientist, has been promoted in Britain's Royal Institution. His interest in a unified force in nature and work in electro-magnetism produces the foundation for electric motors and contributes to what will be "field theory" in modern physics, which includes its most basic formula: E=MC2.

1826 In Spain the Inquisition had been ended by the Revolution in 1820 that had overthrown King Ferdinand VII, but with Ferdinand's return it is revived. A Jew burned is burned at the stake, also a Spanish Quaker schoolmaster who replaced "Hail Mary" with "Praise be to God" in school prayer. It is to be the last of such executions.

1834 The Queen Mother, Maria Christina, fourth wife of Ferdinand VII, who died in 1833, officially ends Spain's Inquisition.

1835 In Britain, vaccination becomes mandatory.