1789–1799 · Europe · Rights
Fiscal crisis, inequality and political conflict toppled the monarchy and produced declarations of rights, republic, terror and war.
Atlas dossier · Enlightenment & RevolutionsFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
Fiscal crisis, inequality and political conflict toppled the monarchy and produced declarations of rights, republic, terror and war.
Third Estate · women marchers · Jacobins · royalists · enslaved colonial peoples
Revolutionary citizenship and nationalism travelled widely, together with mass violence and imperial expansion.
Supplemental archival visual
Prise de la Bastille, 1789 is presented as a period visual interpretation or documentary record. It does not independently establish the dossier’s chronology; use the linked item page and source trail for its provenance and reuse terms.
Open the item page and rights record ↗Prise de la Bastille, 1789 — Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houël; Public Domain; via Bibliothèque nationale de France / Gallica
Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
1791–1804 · AmericasHaitian RevolutionEnslaved people defeated colonial armies and established independent Haiti.
1799–1822 · AfricaThe Rosetta Stone unlocks hieroglyphsFrench soldiers found the trilingual Rosetta Stone at Rashid in 1799; in 1822 Jean-François Champollion showed how its Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic texts could unlock ancient Egyptian writing.
1776 · AmericasAmerican RevolutionThirteen colonies declared independence, advancing republican ideals while slavery and Indigenous dispossession remained entrenched.