1801:
France and Austria sign the Treaty of Lunéville.
Concordat of peace between France and the Papacy.

1802:
Napoleon named Consul for life. France and England enter into Treaty of Amiens, leaving France the predominant power on the European Continent.

1803:
March 15: Promulgation of the Code Napoleon.
Consulate imposes metric system on France.
April 30: USA under President Thomas Jefferson makes the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, for $ 15 million, essentially doubling the size of the USA.
May: Great Britain declares war on France.

1804:
Nicholas Appert establishes a food canning industry in France. In 1810, his methods are made public.
Dec. 2: Napoleon crowns himself as Emperor of the French.

1805:
Oct. 21: British navy under Horatio Nelson defeats French navy off of Cape Trafalgar, southwest coast of Spain. 20 French ships are captured, and British lose no ships, but Nelson is killed by a French sniper.
Dec. 2: Napoleon defeats combined Russian and Austrian armies at Austerlitz.
Napoleon defeats Austrian army at Ulm and then occupies Vienna.
Dec. 26: Treaty of Pressburg, between France and Austria, forces Austria out of the coalition against France.

1806:
July 12: Confederation of the Rhine announced. Corti, 43.
Oct. 14: Napolean defeats Prussian army at Jena, and Napolean soon enters Berlin as a triumphant conqueror.

1807:
Feb. 8: Battle of Eylau, indecisive battle between French and Russian armies.
June 14: Napoleon defeats Russian army at Battle of Friedland. 
June 25: Having won the Battle of Friedland, Napoleon meets Emperor Alexander I of Russia on a raft in the Neman River near Tilsit, to negotiate a peace. The two are later joined by Russia's ally, King Frederick William III of Prussia.
July 7: First Treaty of Tilsit, whereby France and Russia make peace, and Russia recognizes the grand duchy of Warsaw, and secretly agrees to mediate the disputes between France and England, failing resolution of which Russia is to ally itself with France. In exchange, Russia gains the right to dominate Finland, then under the control of Sweden.
July 9: Second Treaty of Tilsit, between Prussia and France, where Prussia loses half its territory, including all territory west of the River Elbe which goes to France, and most of its Polish territory, which goes to the grand duchy of Warsaw.
Napoleon's Milan Decree declares that ships complying with British rules of trade are to be considered denationalized and to have become pirate ships, subject to seizure.

1808
Jan. 1: Commercial Code goes into effect, standardizing commercial practices throughout the French Empire.

1809:
The baccalaureate examination is established.
May: Napoleon defeated by Archduke Charles, at the Battle of Aspern.
July 6: Napoleon defeats Austrian army at Battle of Wagram, leading to Treaty of Schonbrunn.

1810:
French government establishes its own monopoly over tobacco.
March 23: Napoleon's Rambouillet Decree issued in retaliation for the USA's embargo of France under President Thomas Jefferson, orders American ships seized and sold.
Oct. 18: Napoleon's Fontainebleau Decree orders the seizure and burning of any British goods found in Europe.

1811:
Napoleon establishes the Ministry of Manufacturers and Commerce, France's first economic ministry. Production of sugar from sugar beets begins, as a substitute for cane sugar no longer available due to the British boycott and Napoleon's Continental System.

1812:
During the night of June 23-24, Morand's division crosses the Nemen River, soon followed by other divisions. The Grand Armée, 500,000 strong, invades Russia.
Napoleon crosses in the morning, only to find that the Russian army had retreated from Wilna 3 days earlier.
June 28: Napoleon arrives at Wilna.
July 25: Napoleon reaches the small town of Beschenkowitschi and notices that all inhabitants have deserted the town, as if by definite plan.
July 29: Napoleon gives up on catching the Russian army.
Sept. 7: Battle of Borodino, indecisive battle between French and Russian armies, where losses are enormous.
Sept. 14: Napoleon and French army enter Moscow, peopled by only a few thousand Russians.
Sept. 15: Fires break out across Moscow, burn for four days, and leave the city in ruins.
Oct: Napoleon begins his retreat from Moscow.
Dec. 30: Prussia abandons its treaty with France and enters truce with Russia.

1813:
Oct. 16-19: Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, results in Napoleon's retreat. At one blow the whole of Germany was liberated up to the Rhine, the Confederation of the Rhine fell to pieces, the King of Westphalia fled, and Dalberg voluntarily resigned his grand ducal dignity in Frankfort.
Dec. 4: Allies issue the Declaration of Frankfurt.

1814:
March 31: Allies enter Paris.
April 11: Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.
May 3: Louis XVIII enters Paris.
May 10: Treaty of Paris.
May 28: France enters into a convention to pay the allied powers 25 million francs as a lump sum.
Sept.: Congress of Vienna begins, to remake Europe after the downfall of Napoleon.

1815:
March 1: Napoleon lands at Golfe-Juan, near Cannes, France, and begins his march to Paris.
March 19: Louis XVIII flees to Gent, Belgium.
March 20: Napoleon enters Paris, the beginning of the "100 Days."
April 8: Napoleon orders a general mobilization in France.
June 12-18: Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon defeated.
July 15: Napoleon is deported to Santa Helena, an island off the coast of Africa. Napoleon is accompanied by generals Gourgaud, Bertrand, Montholon, le comte de Las Cases, and O'Méara, an English physician.

1817:
Students at the United States Army Academy at West Point begin studying Napoleonic military theory.

1821:
May 5: Napoleon Bonaparte dies of a stomach ulcer at St. Helena, in the south Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from the African coast.

1840:
Napoleon's remains are entombed at La Museé de L'Armeé, in Paris. After 100 years, in 1940 German leader Adolph Hitler relocates the remains of Napoleon II (son of Napoleon Bonaparte), from Vienna to Les Invalides in Paris, to rest beside the remains of his father.

1848:
Revolution. Second Republic. Slavery abolished. 

1852-1870:
Second Empire under Napoleon III. Prosperity and growth. Colonial
conquests. 

1870-1871:
Loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. 

1875:
Third Republic. 

1880-1910:
Secular education, freedom to assemble, separation of church and state (1905). Colonial expansion. 

1894-1906:
France is split over the Affaire Dreyfus: A Jewish army captain is wrongly accused of treason, but found innocent a few years later. 

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