His regiment fought at Toulon in 1793, where he won his first battle by using his field guns to drive off the British fleet, and two years later, he was in Paris for the revolt against the Jacobins. He showed an aptitude for mathematics, especially geometry, at the École Militaire in Paris and earned a commission as an artillery officer in September 1785. Napoleone moved to France at the age of nine to attend school and then enlisted in the French royal army at fifteen. His mother, Letizia, often had to restrain his rambunctious spirit when he was young, and she taught him that to master the world, he must first master himself. As he was second-born after his brother Giuseppe, he could not expect to inherit his father's property or business. Napoleone di Buonaparte was born in August 1769. Carlo and his wife Letizia had fourteen children together, eight of whom survived to adulthood. He was also an ambitious businessman whose risky ventures often failed to pay off, but he hoped that his name might be respected in Corsica as one of honesty and good sense. When his homeland fell to French invaders in 1768, he became the Corsican emissary to the court of Louis XVI. For out of the furnace of the Napoleonic Wars, the modern world was born.”Ĭarlo Maria di Buonaparte was a lawyer and revolutionary leader on the island of Corsica. As Napoleon gained power in France, the world stood on the brink of total war.

Out of the maelstrom emerged a military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, commander of the revolutionary army, who went on to conquer Italy and Egypt before returning to Paris to proclaim himself Emperor.

In England, there was democratic, constitutional monarchy in France, the cataclysm of revolution had dragged the absolute King from the throne and replaced him with the Mob. “At the turn of the 18th century, the greatest nations in Europe, separated by only 21 miles of water, offered two distinct ideologies that would shape the new century. Until then, from everyone here at 15-Minute History, we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! This will be our last episode of 2020, and we'll be taking the month of January off to prepare new and exciting podcasts for you next year. Rather than break up the story of one of the world's most interesting and controversial figures into two episodes, we decided that we'd do an extended podcast and longer discussion of the life and career of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French. Thank you for tuning in to this special double-length episode of 15-Minute History.

Rise of napoleon