# data[].attributes.body
At the end of the 18th century, King Louie XVI gave nobles and the rich many privileges and only gave the Third Estate more taxes. This made the Third Estate revolt and create their own laws. This ended the inequality between social classes, and spread enlightenment between countries in Europe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FRENCH REVOLUTION | Educational Video for Kids.

# data[].attributes.body
The French Revolution began when, during the gluttonous King Louis XVI's reign, the estates general held a meeting and decided to tax the Third Estate even more than they already were. This caused people from the Third estate to revolt and storm the Bastille, which ended up making way for Robespierre, Napoleon, and minor French conquerors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Causes of the French Revolution

As the 18th century drew to a close, France's costly involvement in the American Revolution, combined with extravagant spending by King Louis XVI, had left France on the brink of bankruptcy.

Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but several years of poor harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes-yet failed to provide any relief-by rioting, looting and striking.

In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI's controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, proposed a financial reform package that included a universal land tax from which the aristocratic classes would no longer be exempt.

Estates General

To garner support for these measures and forestall a growing aristocratic revolt, the king summoned the Estates General ( les états généraux) - an assembly representing France's clergy, nobility and middle class - for the first time since 1614.

The meeting was scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from each locality would compile lists of grievances ( cahiers de doléances) to present to the king.

Rise of the Third Estate

France's population, of course, had changed considerably since 1614. The non-aristocratic, middle-class members of the Third Estate now represented 98 percent of the people but could still be outvoted by the other two bodies.

In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation and the abolishment of the noble veto-in other words, they wanted voting by head and not by status.

While all of the orders shared a common desire for fiscal and judicial reform as well as a more representative form of government, the nobles in particular were loath to give up the privileges they had long enjoyed under the traditional system.

Tennis Court Oath

By the time the Estates General convened at Versailles, the highly public debate over its voting process had erupted into open hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who had convened it - the king himself.

On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume), vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved.

Within a week, most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new National Assembly.

The Bastille

On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet at Versailles, fear and violence consumed the capital.

Though enthusiastic about the recent breakdown of royal power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending military coup began to circulate. A popular insurgency culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution.

The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria quickly swept the entire country. Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and the aristocratic elite.

Known as the Great Fear ( la Grande peur), the agrarian insurrection hastened the growing exodus of nobles from France and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789, signing what historian Georges Lefebvre later called the "death certificate of the old order."

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

IIn late August, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ( Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The document proclaimed the Assembly's commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government.

Drafting a formal constitution proved much more of a challenge for the National Constituent Assembly, which had the added burden of functioning as a legislature during harsh economic times.

For months, its members wrestled with fundamental questions about the shape and expanse of France's new political landscape. For instance, who would be responsible for electing delegates? Would the clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church or the French government? Perhaps most importantly, how much authority would the king, his public image further weakened after a failed attempt to flee the country in June 1791, retain?

Adopted on September 3, 1791, France's first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton, who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government and for the trial of Louis XVI.

French Revolution Turns Radical

In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through warfare.

On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792.

The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic.

On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette suffered the same fate nine months later.

Reign of Terror

Following the king's execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention brought the French Revolution to its most violent and turbulent phase.

In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity.

They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (la Terreur), a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794.

Did you know? Over 17,000 people were officially tried and executed during the Reign of Terror, and an unknown number of others died in prison or without trial.

Thermidorian Reaction

The death of Robespierre marked the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction, a moderate phase in which the French people revolted against the Reign of Terror's excesses.

On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France's first bicameral legislature.

Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory ( Directoire) appointed by parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte.

French Revolution Ends: Napoleon's Rise

The Directory's four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field.

On November 9, 1799, as frustration with their leadership reached a fever pitch, Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup d'état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France's " first consul." The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, during which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.

Photo Gallery

Sources

French Revolution. The National Archives (U.K.)
The United States and the French Revolution, 1789-1799. Office of the Historian. U.S. Department of State.
Versailles, from the French Revolution to the Interwar Period. Chateau de Versailles.
French Revolution. Monticello.org.
Individuals, institutions, and innovation in the debates of the French Revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
French Revolution: Timeline, Causes & Dates | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The French Revolution began in 1789. Soon, the Bastille was stormed and the monarchy eliminated. After the Reign of Terror, France established a new government.

# data[].attributes.body
Many minor historical figures helped shape Germany and lead wars to conquer and control more countries.

# data[].attributes.body
The king and queen of Portugal escaped to the modern day Brazil and were forced back to their home after people back in Portugal rebelled. They left their son in their place, and he ended up making Brazil a independent country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brazilian Independence | 3 Minute History

# data[].attributes.body
The German Revolution began when people took note of Napoleon's actions and began to get a sense of Nationalism. The revolution was also sparked by the goals of the Congress of Vienna. Leaders in Germany began to wage wars on Austria, France, Prussia, and more. Germany quickly becomes the most powerful country in Europe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
a revolution in Germany, as a result of which the monarchy was overthrown and a bourgeois parliamentary republic established.

On the eve of the November Revolution of 1918, Germany was one of the most developed capitalist countries. Trusts and cartels played a decisive role in the economy. Large Junker landholdings, which were being reorganized on a capitalist model but which still preserved significant vestiges of feudalism, prevailed in German agriculture. The Junkers, in alliance with the big bourgeoisie, ruled the country. In 1918, V. I. Lenin wrote: "Here we have the 'last word' in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organization, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism" ( Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 36, p. 300). The proletariat was an active revolutionary force in Germany. All the material preconditions existed for the transition to a resolution of the tasks of the socialist revolution after the overthrow of the monarchy and the elimination of the vestiges of feudalism. Class contradictions grew more intense as World War I (1914-18) dragged on, bringing huge profits to the Junkers and the bourgeoisie and imposing grave hardships on the popular masses.

The Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia had a great influence on the upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Germany. The January general strike of 1918, involving more than 1 million workers, took on a political character. The workers came out against the imperialist war and German imperialism's plans to plunder Soviet Russia. They supported an immediate democratic peace and the overthrow of the kaiser's imperialist government. During the strike the workers organized councils. Revolutionary ferment also spread throughout the army. By the autumn of 1918, it had become apparent that Germany would be utterly defeated in World War I. This hastened the ripening of the revolution.

At a conference of the Spartacist groups on Oct. 7, 1918, the program for a popular revolution was adopted. Taking as its starting point the correlation of class forces, the program, on the whole, correctly formulated the principal national and social task of the revolution: the immediate end of the war and the overthrow of German imperialism as the precondition for the resolution of the tasks of the socialist revolution. The conference called on the workers to overthrow the government of war and fight for the expropriation of bank capital, mines, blast furnaces, and the property of large-scale landowners. It appealed to the workers to struggle for the establishment of a minimum wage, for the immediate abolition of the state of siege, and for the release of political prisoners.

Striving to prevent a revolution, on October 4 the German imperialists organized a so-called democratic coalition government, headed by Prince Max of Baden. The Social Democratic leaders P. Scheidemann and G. Bauer were members of the coalition government. But the German imperialists did not succeed in stemming the tide of the revolutionary movement. A sailors' uprising, the prologue to the November revolution, broke out in Kiel on Nov. 3, 1918.

On November 9 the Spartacist group and the revolutionary delegates of Berlin, who had been elected during the January 1918 strike, called for a general strike and an armed uprising. Soldiers joined the workers, who were taking to the streets of Berlin. The abdication of the kaiser was announced at about noon on November 9. The monarchy had been overthrown, and the working class was confronted with the task of destroying the vestiges of feudalism, smashing the old machinery of state, and struggling for a socialist revolution. Under these conditions, Liebknecht, speaking in the name of the revolutionary proletariat, proclaimed the Socialist Republic on November 9 at about 4 P.M.

The right-wing Social Democratic leaders and the centrist Independent Social Democratic Party directed their efforts at saving the capitalist system. Scheidemann advanced the slogan of the creation of a "free German republic." This, in fact, signified the proclamation of a bourgeois republic. However, the right-wing Social Democratic leaders and the centrist leadership of the "Independents" were unable to block the development of the revolution at this stage. The revolutionary workers of Germany, following the example of Soviet Russia, organized workers' and soldiers' councils throughout the country. Where consistent revolutionaries headed the movement and were influential in the councils, the purge of reactionary elements from local bodies of the state apparatus was initiated, and the economic power of the magnates of capital was limited by the establishment of control over production. However, the Spartacist League lacked sufficient political, ideological, and organizational strength and experience to be able, in the struggle for anti-imperialist democratic demands, to win a majority in the councils and transform them into bodies representing the power of the working class and the toiling masses. The councils were paralyzed by the influence of Social Democratic policies and by illusions concerning bourgeois parliamentarism and the role of the state as a force supposedly above all classes.

Gaining a majority in the councils, the opportunistic leaders of the Social Democratic Party and the Independents transformed the councils into a front for the counterrevolution. The provisional government-the Council of People's Commissars-which was elected on November 10 at a general assembly of the Berlin councils, included three representatives of the right-wing Social Democrats (F. Ebert, Scheidemann, and O. Landsberg) and three Independent Social Democrats (H. Haase, W. Ditt-mann, and E. Barth). The Council allowed the kaiser's officials to keep their posts. The representatives of the revolutionary delegates demanded that Liebknecht be included in the government. As conditions for his entering the government, Liebknecht demanded the transfer of all power to the councils and the removal of bourgeois politicians from them. But the right-wing Social Democrats rejected his demands and postponed decisions on questions of vital importance to the German people-the aims of government policy and the establishment of a social republic until the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

Disregarding the wishes of the reformist leaders of the Social Democratic Party, the Spartacist League waged a struggle for the further development of the revolution. Under pressure from the revolutionary masses, the government lifted the state of siege, proclaimed freedom for trade unions and an amnesty for political prisoners, and established the eight-hour workday. At the same time, however, the government concluded an alliance with the monarchist, reactionary P. von Hindenburg, head of the army, to wage a joint struggle against the revolution. Relying on the army, which was commanded by Junker militarist elements, the Council of People's Commissars went on the offensive against the rights that had just been won by the workers. In their struggle against the revolutionary masses, the reactionaries also relied on aid from imperialists in the USA, Great Britain, and France. As early as November 5, the government of Prince Max of Baden expelled the Soviet ambassador from Berlin. The Social Democratic leaders hoped that this would prevent an alliance between the Russian and German revolutions. They tried to open the way for an agreement with the Entente imperialists on the struggle against the Soviet Republic and the German revolution. On Nov. 11, 1918, Germany signed a truce with the Entente at Compiègne. Under the truce, Germany was permitted to maintain an army. The Ebert-Scheidemann government voluntarily pledged to maintain German occupation forces in the Ukraine and the Baltic until the arrival of Entente troops. Thus, the Social Democratic government continued the kaiser's anti-Soviet policy, which contradicted the basic national interests of the German people.

In an attempt to block the expropriation of capitalist property, the Social Democratic government unleashed a broad propaganda campaign in favor of "socialization." Collaborating with company owners and trade union leaders, it established the Commission on Socialization, headed by K. Kautsky. The activity of the commission was merely a series of demagogic maneuvers. Despite the demands of the workers, 250,000 of whom joined a demonstration organized by the Spartacist League on Dec. 16, 1918, in support of the transfer of power to the workers' and soldiers' councils and in favor of an alliance with Soviet Russia, at the First All-German Congress of Workers' Councils (Dec. 16-21, 1918) the Social Democratic leaders succeeded in passing resolutions on elections to the bourgeois Constituent Assembly and on the transfer of legislative power to the government. Subsequently, the Ebert-Scheidemann government switched to an open offensive against the working class. Government troops attacked the revolutionary naval division in Berlin on the night of Dec. 23-24, 1918. With the aid of armed workers, the sailors repulsed this attack by the forces of the counterrevolution and were prepared to pass over to a counteroffensive, but the leaders of the Independents frustrated their plans. In January 1919 the bourgeoisie provoked the proletariat into a premature action and took advantage of the workers' unpreparedness to crush the revolutionary movement. The leaders of the revolution, Liebknecht and R. Luxemburg, were brutally murdered on January 15. The Weimar Constitution of 1919, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on July 31, 1919, confirmed the establishment of the bourgeois republic.

All the objective preconditions for a socialist revolution had existed in Germany, but the November Revolution of 1918 did not go beyond the framework of a bourgeois democratic revolution, although it was, to a certain extent, carried out by proletarian means and methods. Its main task-the overthrow of German imperialism-remained unfulfilled. A bourgeois republic replaced the monarchy. Large-scale Junker landowning remained untouched. With the aid of the Social Democratic leaders, the German bourgeoisie and the Junkers crushed the working-class movement, which lacked a tempered, genuinely revolutionary, mass Marxist-Leninist party. The Communist Party of Germany, which was founded at the end of December 1918 and the beginning of January 1919, had only weak ties with the broad masses of the proletariat, the working peasantry, and the rest of the toiling masses. Ideologically and organizationally divided, the working class was not in a position to lead the toiling peasantry. Nevertheless, the November Revolution of 1918 was one of the most important events in German history and the most important revolutionary, anti-imperialist movement of the years of revolutionary upsurge immediately following the Great October Socialist Revolution.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. "Tiazhelyi, no neobkhodimyi urok." Poln. sobr. soch, 5th ed., vol. 35.
Lenin. "Strannoe i chudovishchnoe." Ibid.
Lenin. "Doklad na Ob"edinennom zasedanii VTsIK, Moskovskogo Soveta, fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov i professional'nykh soiuzov 22 oktiabria 1918 g." Ibid., vol. 37.
Lenin. "Rech' o godovshchine revoliutsii 6 noiabria," "Rech' o mezh-dunarodnom polozhenii 8 noiabria" (VI Vserossiiskii Chrezyychainyi s"ezd Sovetov rabochikh, krest'ianskikh, kazach'ikh i krasnoarmeis-kikh deputatov 6-9 noiabria 1918 g). Ibid.
Lenin. "O 'demokratii' i diktature." Ibid.
Lenin. "Rech' na mitinge protesta protiv ubiistva Karla Libknekhta i Rozy Liuksemburg 19 ianvaria 1919 g." Ibid.
Lenin. "Pis'mo k rabochim Evropy i Ameriki." Ibid.
Lenin. "Dopolnenie k proektu obrashcheniia k germanskim rabochim i ne ekspluatiruiushchim chuzhogo truda krest'ianam." Ibid., vol. 38.
Lenin. "Geroi Bernskogo Internatsionala." Ibid.
Lenin. "Kak burzhuaziia ispol'zuet renegatov." Ibid., vol. 39.
Lenin. "Privet ital'ianskim, frantsuzskim i nemetskim kommunistam." Ibid.
Lenin. "Chlenam gruppy 'Spartak,' 18 oktiabria 1918." Ibid., vol. 50.
Thälmann, E. Boevye rechi i stat'i. Moscow, 1935. (Translated from German.)
Ocherk istorii nemetskogo rabochego dvizheniia. Moscow, 1964. (Translated from German.)
Noiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Germanii (collection of articles and materials). Moscow, 1960.
Drabkin, Ia. S. Noiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Germanii. Moscow, 1967.

W. U LBRICHT [German Democratic Republic; 18-414-7]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Looking for German Revolution? Find out information about German Revolution. The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia . It might be outdated or ideologically biased. a revolution in Germany, as a result of which... Explanation of German Revolution

# data[].attributes.body
People in Brazil got their independence when a prince, left in charge of Brazil by his parents, asked for permission to make Brazil an independent country. This was a bloodless revolution.