- Napoleon Bonaparte 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 born in Corsica, France.
- In 1799, he staged a coup d'état amidst the turmoil of post revolutionary France and installed himself as First Consul.
- In 1804 he was proclaimed Emperor by French Senate
- In 1784, Napoleon was admitted to the elite École Militaire in Paris
- At one time he did to consider an application to the British Royal Navy to further his naval ambitions, but chose against it.
- Bonaparte was put under house arrest in August 1794 for his association with the Robespierre brothers.
- In October 1795 he helped defeat a Royalist insurrection, which caused him to rise rapidly to fame.
- By 1812, Napoleon had wiped out the last traces of the Holy Roman Empire and conquered most of Europe.
- However, his next invasion of Russia proved very costly as his army suffered in the harsh winter near Moscow.
- On 18 March 1814, the allies marched into Paris and Napoleon was forced to abdicate on 6 April 1814.
- Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, but, a year later broke away with a 1,000 men and reclaimed the leadership of France.
- Napoleon was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the allied armies commanded by the Duke of Wellington.
- His second exile was to the island of Saint Helena, where he died six years later.
How Tall Was Napoleon?
- His autopsy states that by the French measure he was five foot two (5' 2"),This actually translates into five feet six and one half inches (5' 6.5")
- The Napoleonic code, which he introduced forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified.
- Ludwig van Beethoven initially dedicated his third symphony, the Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), to Napoleon in the belief that the general would sustain the democratic and republican ideals of the French Revolution.
- But, after Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear he renamed the symphony "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il Sovvenire di un grand'Uomo", or in English, "composed to celebrate the memory of a great man".
