Enlightenment Thinkers
This philosopher's 1651 work Leviathan argued that without an all-powerful sovereign, life in the state of nature would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This Catholic king of England fled to France in December 1688 after Parliament invited a rival claimant to invade, ending his reign without a battle fought on English soil.
Who is James II?
This document moves through three parts — a statement of natural rights, a 27-item indictment of King George III, and a formal resolution — giving students a structural map they can trace straight back to Locke.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
Adopted August 26, 1789, this document echoed America's own declaration by asserting that men are born free and equal in rights — becoming this course's first Framework Check applied to Revolutionary France.
What is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
On November 9–10, 1799, Napoleon overthrew France's unstable Directory in this coup, taking power as First Consul and beginning his climb to Emperor.
What is the Coup of 18 Brumaire?
This philosopher's Second Treatise of Government held that legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed and exists to protect natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
Who is John Locke?
In 1688, Parliament invited this Dutch prince and his wife — James II's own daughter — to take the English throne jointly, on the condition they accept new limits on royal power.
Who are William and Mary (William III and Mary II)?
This French aristocrat fought alongside Washington in the American Revolution, then helped carry its ideas home to France, contributing to a 1789 document whose Article 1 echoes Jefferson's language on natural rights.
Who is Lafayette (the Marquis de Lafayette)?
This pre-revolutionary social and political structure divided France into clergy, nobility, and everyone else — an unequal tax burden across the three groups helped trigger the fiscal crisis of 1789.
What is the Estates system (the Three Estates)?
Enacted March 21, 1804, this uniform legal code guaranteed legal equality for men under the law while rolling back married women's legal rights — landing as this course's first MIXED verdict under the Rights criterion.
What is the Napoleonic Code (Code Civil)?
In The Spirit of the Laws, this philosopher argued that government power should be divided among legislative, executive, and judicial branches to prevent tyranny — an idea later built directly into the U.S. Constitution.
Who is Montesquieu?
Accepted by William and Mary as a condition of taking the throne, this 1689 document laid out 13 grievances against James II and established rights like no taxation and no standing army without Parliament's consent.
What is the English Bill of Rights?
On January 1, 1804, this nation became the first in the world to abolish slavery outright in its own founding document — pushing the American Revolution's promise of liberty further than the Americans themselves had gone.
What is Haiti?
On February 5, 1794, this leader of the Committee of Public Safety declared that "terror without virtue is fatal" and "virtue without terror is powerless," defending the Terror as a moral necessity rather than a betrayal of it.
Who is Robespierre (Maximilien Robespierre)?
In this 1812 campaign, roughly 600,000 troops marched into a hostile winter and only a small fraction marched out — this course's example of history's largest-scale failure of Stoic wisdom.
What is the invasion of Russia (the Russian campaign of 1812)?
This philosopher's The Social Contract opens with "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," arguing that legitimate authority flows from the "general will" of the people.
Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
Historians call England's 1688–89 revolution "glorious" and "bloodless" because James II fled without a fight — but this violent 1689–91 conflict in a neighboring kingdom shows that label doesn't hold everywhere.
What is the Williamite War (in Ireland)?
Named directly alongside Jefferson and Madison in California's own history standards, this South American revolutionary is credited with helping liberate five nations from colonial rule, carrying the American Revolution's model across Latin America.
Who is Simón Bolívar?
On July 28, 1794, this event saw the architect of the Terror executed without a trial — the same revolutionary machinery he built turning on its own creator.
What is the Thermidorian Reaction?
Napoleon's escape from exile on Elba in February 1815 triggered the Hundred Days, ending on June 18 in defeat at this battle, which closed out his rule for good.
What is the Battle of Waterloo?
Through works like his Treatise on Tolerance, this philosopher became the Enlightenment's fiercest voice for freedom of religion and speech, repeatedly clashing with the French monarchy and the Catholic Church.
Who is Voltaire?
Applying this course's four-part Legitimate Authority vs. Tyranny framework — Consent, Law, Rights, Accountability — this event became Unit 1's first case study to earn a clean PASS on all four criteria.
What is the Glorious Revolution?
Struck by Congress between July 1 and 3, 1776, this deleted passage from Jefferson's draft had condemned the slave trade — its removal is this lesson's central piece of evidence that the Declaration's promise came with a gap.
What is the anti-slave-trade passage (from Jefferson's draft of the Declaration)?
Unlike the Old Regime it replaced, this radical phase of the government failed the same Consent/Law/Rights/Accountability test it claimed to uphold — this course's first case of a revolution becoming the very tyranny it overthrew.
What is the Reign of Terror?
This pope traveled to Paris and was present at Napoleon's 1804 coronation — contrary to the classroom myth that Napoleon spontaneously snubbed him by seizing the crown unannounced.
Who is Pope Pius VII?