France Timeline
200 BC The Romans began invading the region of France, which was then called Gaul.
121 BC The Romans controlled the Gallic land along the Mediterranean Sea and in the Rhone Valley.
58-51 BC Julius Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul. The people of Gaul adopted the Roman way.
200s AD Barbarians began to invade the land of Gaul.
400s The Franks and other Germanic tribes conquered the region of France from the Romans.
486 Clovis, king of the Franks, defeated the Roman governor of Gaul. He then conquered the rest of the Germanic tribes in Gaul. He founded the Merovingian dynasty.
496 Clovis converted to Christianity.
600s-1000s During this period of the Middle Ages, manors were built over much of France.
700s Feudalism began to develop as a political and military system.
732 Charles Martel, leader of the Franks, defeated the Arabs as they attacked the kingdom.
751 Pepin the short, son of Charles, became the king of the Franks. Pepin helped the political power of the pope, by giving him a large gift of land north of Rome.
800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, became the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He built the area into a huge kingdom.
814 Charlemagne died. The kingdom was ruled by his three sons.
843 They kingdom was divide by into three by the rulers. Charles the Bald received most of what is now France.
Late 900s By this time the king had become little more than a great feudal lord. He was chosen by the other feudal lords to lead them in time of war, but during peace time the lords controlled their own property without any say of the king.
987 Hugh Capet became king. He started the Capetian dynasty. The beginning of the french nation is considered to have begun at his coronation, although the feudal lords continued to rule their domains.
1066 The Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, invaded England and became king.
1100-1300 Many noblemen left France to join the Crusades to capture the Holy Land from the Muslims.
1180 Phillip II became the Capetian king. Under his control the he doubled the royal domain and tightened his control over the nobles. He set up Paris as the capital and he built up a large body of government officials. He appointed many of the middle class as officials.
1302 King Philip IV set up the first Estates-General. It was the ancestor of the French parliament.
1305 Philip influenced the election of the new pope, Clement V.
1309 Clement moved the pope's court to Avignon.
1328 The Valois dynasty began when Philip VI became king. He was a cousin to the last Capetian king, Charles IV.
1337 Philip declared war on England. He tried to take over the land that England held in France. King Edward III of England, a nephew to Charles IV, claimed the French thrown. These actions started the Hundred years' War between France and England.
1453 The French were able to drive the British out of France after Joan of Arc's victory at Orleans, ending the Hundred Years' War.
1500s Many French people became Protestants during the Reformation.
1515 King Francis I captured Milan from northern Italy.
1540 The Huguenots, a Protestant group, began being persecuted by the government. Eventually the French Roman Catholics fought a series of civil wars that lasted for over 30 years.
1558 France seized the port city of Calais from England. It was their last possession in France.
1572 The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day occurred. Thousands of Huguenots were killed.
1589 The Bourbon dynasty started after Henry III died without a male heir. Henry the IV became the king. The Roman Catholics prevent Henry from entering Paris, because he was the leader of the Huguenots.
1593 Henry became Roman Catholic to achieve peace.
1594 Henry entered Paris.
1598 The Edict of Nantes was signed by Henry. It gave limited freedom of worship to the Huguenots.
1610 Henry was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic.
1661 After Jules, Cardinal Mazarin, the prime minister died, King Louis XIV declared that he would be the prime minister. He was considered the example of the absolute French king.
1685 The Edict of Nantes was canceled by Louis. Once again the Huguenots were persecuted. As a result 200,000 Huguenots fled France, which severely hurt the French economy.
1700s During this century a government bureaucracy developed. It managed the royal army and collected taxes. Also during this time period lawyers and jurists bought their positions from the king. They became nobles. The population growth exceeded the agriculture's production causing famines and food storage.
1786 Because the government could not tax the nobles or the church, they were in need of money to support the military. As a result the government proposed a new land tax. Many urban lawyers, merchants, clerks, and craft workers opposed new taxes. The French Revolution was born out of this crisis.
5 May 1789 King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates-General. They met a t Versailles. Louis wanted to win support for new taxes.
June 1789 The commoners who made up the third estate of the Estates-General declared themselves a National Assembly. They declared that they had the power to write a new constitution for France.
1792 A republic was set up in France after the king was overthrown
14 July 1789 Bastille was captured by the people of Paris to show their resistence to Louis.
September 1791 The National Assembly finished the constitution. They made France a constitutional monarchy.
April 1792 France went to war with Prussia and Austria.
Summer 1792 As the Austrian and Prussian armies marched on Paris the revolutionaries imprisoned Louis XVI and his family. The monarchy was abolished.
21 September 1792 During elections by all adult French males, France was declared a republic.
1793 Napoleon Bonaparte was named a general.
1795 A new constitution was adopted. It formed a new government called the Directory.
1795-1799 The Directory governed France.
1799 Napoleon overthrew the Directory and seized control of France.
1812 By this year, Napoleon's armies had conquered most of western and central Europe.
1814 By this year, Napoleon's armies had conquered most of western and central Europe.
1815 Napoleon regained control for three months, but after his defeat at Waterloo, he was exiled for the rest of his life.
1815 The Bourbons were returned to the throne.
1824 Charles X became king. He tried to reestablish the previous power held by earlier French kings.
July 1830 Charles was overthrown during the July Revolution of 1830. Louis Philippe was placed on the throne by the revolutionaries.
February 1848 The government was overthrown during the Revolution of 1848. A Second Republic was established. All Frenchmen received the right to vote.
1848 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon, was elected to a four-year term as president.
1851 Napoleon seized all the power and declared himself the president for the next ten years.
1852 The Second Empire was established by Napoleon. He declared himself Emperor Napoleon III.
1870 France declared war on Prussia.
1870 After Prussia achieved several victories on the battlefield, The French revolted against Napoleon. He was overthrown and a provisional government was set up.
1871 France was defeated by Prussia. In the peace agreements, France was forced to give up almost all of Alsace and part of Lorraine.
1871 A new National Assembly was elected. This was called the Third Republic.
1875 The Assembly voted to continue the republic. They drafted a new constitution.
1894 France formed a military alliance with Russia. It was called the Entente Cordiale.
1894 The Dreyfus Affair forced the French people to decide wether they supported the republic or not.
15 October 1894 Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer, was arrested for suspicion of spying for Germany.
December 1894 Dreyfus was convicted by a military court.
1895 Evidence slowly surfaced of Dreyfus's innocence. The Socialists who included the French working class, moderate republicans, and others with no political background rallied to Dreyfus's side. Dreyfus became a symbol of civil liberties and republican virtues. The result of the case brought strengthened support of the republic.
1904 France formed an alliance with the United Kingdom.
1906 Dreyfus was found innocent by France's highest court.
1907 The Triple Entente was formed with France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The French began preparing for war.
1914 World War I started. Germany soon invaded France.
1914-1918 French and German troops fought from trenches stretched across northeastern France and Belgium.
February 1916 The Germans launched an attack on Verdun.
Februay-July 1916 Hundreds of thousands of French and German troops were killed during the fighting at Verdun. The Germans finally halted their unsuccessful attack.
1919 The treaty of Versailles was signed. As part of the treaty France recovered Alsace an the German part of Lorraine. France was also awarded reparations from Germany.
1923 France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr Valley of Germany, because the Germans had fallen behind in their reparation payments.
1925 French troops withdrew from the Ruhr Valley after the Germans agreed to keep up their reparation payments.
1925 The Rhineland Security Pact was formed with France and Germany and other Allied nations.
1928 The Kellogg-Briand Pact was made. It was signed by France, Germany, and 13 other countries.
1929 France began building the Maginot Line of defense against Germany.
1930s Economic depression hit France. This and the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany caused serious political unrest in France.
1936 The Popular Front came to power in France. It made promises to strikers to give annual paid vacations and 40 hour work weeks
1938 The French government began to give in to the demands of Nazi Germany.
1938 France signed the Munich Agreement. It forced Czechoslovakia to give land to Germany.
1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland.
3 September 1939 France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany starting World War II.
10 May 1940 Germany attacked Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
12 May 1940 Germany Attacked France through Belgium.
5 June 1940 Germans launched a major attack on the southern region of France.
14 June 1940 German troops entered Paris.
22 June 1940 France signed an armistice with Germany. Germans occupied the northern two-thirds of France. The southern section of France remained under French control. Southern France was governed by Marshal Henri Philippe Petain. He cooperated with the Germans.
November 1942 Germany occupied southern France.
6 June 1944 Allied forces landed at Normandy.
15 June 1944 Allied forces landed at southern France.
25 August 1944 Allied troops regained Paris. Charles De Gaulle formed a provisional government of which he became the head.
1945 France became a charter member of the United Nations.
October 1945 The French people voted to have the National Assembly create a new constitution, thus making the Fourth Republic. French women voted for the first time in this election.
January 1946 De Gaulle resigned as president, because he had some disagreements with the Assembly.
1946 Indochina, a French colony, began revolting against French rule.
October 1946 The new constitution went into effect.
1947-1948 Communists led strikes which crippled production across the country.
1949 France became a charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
1950s France helped to found European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community (EEC). These agencies later became the European Community (EC).
1954 France withdrew from Indochina.
1954 Algeria, a French colony, began revolting against French rule. France refused to give up Algeria. They sent 500,000 soldiers to fight there.
1956 Morocco and Tunisia, French colonies, were granted their independence from France.
May 1958 Even though many French people thought the fighting in Algeria was useless, army leaders and settlers in the colony threatened to overthrow the government by force unless they continued to fight. To come to a compromise, De Gaulle was brought back to power as prime minister. He was given emergency powers for six months.
28 September 1958 A new constitution went into effect establishing the Fifth Republic. It gave the president greater power than before.
December 1958 De Gaulle was elected to a seven year term as president.
1961 Peace talks began with Algeria.
March 1962 France and Algeria agreed to a cease-fire.
3 July 1962 Algeria became independent.
1962 An amendment was added to the constitution which changed the election laws. The president would be elected directly by the people and not the electoral college.
1963 De Gaulle would not allow the United Kingdom to join the EEC. He considered them a rival for leadership in Western Europe and he thought their ties to the United States were too strong. He did not want America to have any influence on the European economy.
1965 De Gaulle was reelected.
1966 De Gaulle removed all French troops from NATO.
April 1967 All NATO bases and troops were removed from France. France remained a member of NATO politically, but not militarily.
May 1968 Students staged demonstrations against De Gaulle's leadership in Paris. Soon demonstrations spread throughout France. Millions of workers joined in by going on strike. For two weeks the country was paralyzed. De Gaulle managed to bring the situation under control by the end of the month.
June 1968 De Gaulle called for a general election. His supporters won more than 70% of the seats in parliament, but his reputation had been damaged by the events of May.
April 1969 De Gaulle asked for some constitutional reforms. He said that if the voters did not approve of the reforms then he would resign. The voters voted against the reforms, so De Gaulle resigned.
June 1969 Georges Pompidou was elected president.
1971 Pompidou allowed the United Kingdom to join the EC. He also improved relations with the United States.
1973 A world-wide oil crisis severely hurt France's economy. They depended almost entirely on petroleum imports.
April 1974 Pompidou died.
May 1974 Giscard d'Estaing was elected president.
1981 The elections this year brought the Socialist party to power. Francois Mitterrand became the president.
1982 The elections this year brought the Socialist party to power. Francois Mitterrand became the president.
1983 54 French troops were killed in Beirut by a terrorist bombing.
1984 France withdrew its troops.
1986 The elections this year brought a parliamentary majority to the conservatives. Jacques Chirac was named prime minister, but Mitterrand remained president
1988 Chirac ran against Mitterrand for president. Mitterrand was reelected. The Socialists also won a slight majority in parliament so Chirac was released from his position as prime minister.
1993 The EC became incorporated into the European Union (EU).
1995 France suffered from many problems this year including, floods, international criticism for its nuclear testing in the south pacific, and a long transportation workers strike.
1995 Chirac ran for president again. This time he was victorious.
1996 Chirac ended the nuclear testing.
1 January 2001 The Euro replaced the Frank as the currency.
2002 Chirac was reelected.
Works Cited
"France." Info Please.com
Reddyy, William M. "France." Worldbookonline.com.