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People of the War of the First Coalition

  • NapoleonNapoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleone di Buonaparte on the 15th of August 1769, on the island of Corsica, to a family of Italian origin.
  • Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount NelsonHoratio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, died on the 21st of October 1805 with his fleet still fighting around him, a French marksman's bullet lodged in his…
  • Francis II, Holy Roman EmperorOn the 6th of August 1806, a Habsburg monarch signed away a thousand years of European tradition. Francis II declared the bond tying him to the states of the…
  • William Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the Younger became Britain's prime minister at the age of 24, the youngest person ever to hold that office in British or world history.
  • Louis XVILouis XVI asked one last question on the morning of his execution: "Any news of La Pérouse?" The explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, had…
  • Maximilien RobespierreMaximilien Robespierre was born in Arras on the 6th of May 1758. Thirty-six years later, on the 28th of July 1794, he was executed without trial, sent to the…
  • Ferdinand I of the Two SiciliesFerdinand I of the Two Sicilies was born in Naples on the 12th of January 1751, a third son with no obvious future as a king.
  • Karl Mack von LeiberichKarl Mack von Leiberich entered an Austrian cavalry regiment in 1770. He served under his uncle Georg Wilhelm Leiberich, who commanded a squadron within that…
  • Charles IV of SpainCharles IV of Spain was born on the 11th of November 1748 in Naples, where his father was then ruling as King of Naples and Sicily.
  • Joachim MuratJoachim Murat, born on the 25th of March 1767 in a small town in southwestern France, died facing a firing squad on the 13th of October 1815 in Pizzo Calabro.
  • Jean-Baptiste KléberJean-Baptiste Kléber was stabbed four times in a garden in Cairo on the 14th of June 1800 by a theology student who had pretended to beg from him.
  • Michel NeyMichel Ney stood before a firing squad in Paris on the 7th of December 1815 and refused to wear a blindfold. His reason was simple and devastating: he had…