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Dateline
2000 B.C. Lutétia thrives along a strategic crossing of the Seine, the headquarters of the Parisii tribe.
52 B.C. Julius Caesar conquers Lutétia during the Gallic Wars.
A.D. 150 Lutétia flourishes as a Roman colony, expanding to the Left Bank.
200 Barbarian Gauls force the Romans to retreat to the fortifications on Ile de la Cité.
300 Lutétia is renamed Paris; Roman power weakens in northern France.
350 Paris's Christianization begins.
400s The Franks invade Paris, with social transformation from the Roman to the Gallo-Roman culture.
466 Clovis, founder of the Merovingian dynasty and first non-Roman ruler of Paris since the Parisii, is born.
800 Charlemagne, founder of the Carolingian dynasty, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor and rules from Aachen in modern Germany.
987 Hugh Capet, founder of France's foremost early medieval dynasty, rises to power; his family rules from Paris.
1100 The Université de Paris attracts scholars from throughout Europe.
1200s Paris's population and power grow, though it is often unsettled by plagues and feudal battles.
1422 England invades Paris during the Hundred Years' War.
1429 Joan of Arc tries to regain Paris for the French; the Burgundians later capture and sell her to the English, who burn her at the stake in Rouen.
1500s François I, first of the French Renaissance kings, embellishes Paris but chooses to maintain his court in the Loire Valley.
1549 Henri II rules from Paris; construction of public and private residences begins, many in the Marais.
1564 Construction begins on Catherine de Médici's Palais des Tuileries; building facades in Paris move from half-timbered to more durable chiseled stonework.
1572 The Wars of Religion reach their climax with the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants.
1598 Henri IV, the most eccentric and enlightened monarch of his era, endorses the Edict of Nantes, granting tolerance to Protestants; a crazed monk fatally stabs him 12 years later.
1615 Construction begins on the Palais du Luxembourg for Henri IV's widow, Marie de Médici.
1636 The Palais Royal is launched by Cardinal Richelieu; soon, two marshy islands in the Seine are interconnected and filled in to create Ile St-Louis.
1643 Louis XIV, the "Sun King," one of the most powerful rulers since the Caesars, rises to power; he moves his court to the newly built Versailles.
1776 The American Declaration of Independence strikes a revolutionary chord in France.
1789 The French Revolution begins.
1793 Louis XVI and his Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, are publicly guillotined.
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Master of France and embellishes Paris further with neoclassical splendor.
1803 Napoleon abandons French overseas expansion and sells Louisiana to America.
1812 Napoleon is defeated in the Russian winter campaign.
1814 Aided by a coalition of France's enemies, especially England, the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII is restored.
1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies.
1824 Louis XVIII dies, and Charles X succeeds him.
1830 Charles X is deposed, and the more liberal Louis-Philippe is elected king; Paris prospers as it industrializes.
1848 A violent working-class revolution deposes Louis-Philippe, who's replaced by autocratic Napoleon III.
1853-70 On Napoleon III's orders, Baron Haussmann redesigns Paris's landscapes and creates the Grands Boulevards.
1860s The Impressionist style of painting emerges.
1870 The Franco-Prussian War ends in the defeat of France; Paris is threatened by Prussian cannons placed on the outskirts of the city; a revolution in the aftermath of this defeat destroys the Palais des Tuileries and overthrows the government; the Third Republic rises with its elected president, Marshal MacMahon.
1878-1937 Several international expositions add monuments to the Paris skyline, including the Tour Eiffel and Sacré-Coeur.
1895 Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, is wrongfully charged with treason and sentenced to life on Devil's Island. The incident will lead to one of the major French political scandals of the 19th century.
1898 Emile Zola publishes J'Accuse in defense of Dreyfus and flees into exile in England.
1906 Dreyfus is finally exonerated, and his rank is restored.
1914-18 World War I rips apart Europe.
1940 German troops invade Paris; the French government, under Marshal Pétain, evacuates to Vichy, while the French Resistance under Gen. Charles de Gaulle maintains symbolic headquarters in London.
1944 U.S. troops liberate Paris; de Gaulle returns in triumph.
1948 The revolt in the French colony of Madagascar costs 80,000 French lives; France's empire continues to collapse in Southeast Asia and equatorial Africa.
1954-62 War begins in Algeria and is eventually lost; refugees flood Paris, and the nation becomes divided over its North African policies.
1958 France's Fourth Republic collapses; General de Gaulle is called out of retirement to head the Fifth Republic.
1968 Paris's students and factory workers engage in a general revolt; the French government is overhauled in the aftermath.
1981 François Mitterrand is elected France's first Socialist president since the 1940s; he's reelected in 1988.
1989 Paris celebrates the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
1992 Euro Disney opens on the outskirts of Paris.
1994 François Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II ride under the English Channel in the new Chunnel.
1995 Jacques Chirac is elected over Mitterrand, who dies the following year; Paris is crippled by a general strike; terrorists bomb the subway.
1997 Authorities enforce strict immigration laws, causing strife for African and Arab immigrants and dividing the country; French voters elect Socialist Lionel Jospin as Chirac's new prime minister.
1998 Socialists triumph in local elections across France.
1999 The euro is introduced; on Christmas Day a violent storm assaults Paris and the Ile de France, damaging buildings and toppling thousands of trees.
2002 France replaces its national currency, the franc, and switches to the euro, the new European currency.
2003 Attacks on French Jews mark the rise of anti-Semitism, the worst since World War II.
2005 Mostly French Arab rioters attack Paris suburbs, as violence spreads to French cities.
2006 Massive demonstrations against a new labor law are held in Paris and other cities. Jacques Chirac revokes the law.
2007 Pro-American Nicholas Sarkozy becomes president of France, sparking riots.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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