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The first chocolate bar is manufactured by the Swiss Francois-Louis Cailler.

Augusta Ada Byron is born, daughter of Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke. Lord Byron leaves his wife and daughter the following April, and Ada never sees her father again. Lord Byron dies on the front lines of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans

Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain emerge as world powers, France is temporarily eclipsed, and the Habsburg monarchy sinks into insignificance.

Congress of Vienna restores the ancient sovereigns

4:00 PM: The French cavalry, alone, under the command of Marshal Ney, attacks the Allied lines; the squares formed by the British infantry prevent the cavalry from attacking.

Napoleon Bonaparte, having reconstituted his army, crosses the border into Belgium at Charleroi

Murat, faced with the victorious Austrian army on Neapolitan soil, abdicates. Austrian General Bianchi, however, does not force his hand under the terms of the armistice. Murat will return to France to serve Napoleon, who, however, will not even welcome him. Then, leading a detachment

Baltimore. British General Robert Ross landed 4,000 troops near the city and laid siege to the American fortress, Fort McHenry. The siege failed, and Ross was killed.

Washington, DC, United States. James Madison, the fourth president of the young nation, is forced to flee the capital, first by boat and then on a galloping horse. He flees into the dark forests of Virginia. Washington, DC, has been reached by the British army

Englishman Thomas Young made a giant leap forward in the interpretation of the Rosetta Stone, and in particular in understanding the sound and pronunciation of the ancient Egyptian language. The key is the cartouches, small groups of hieroglyphics surrounded by a continuous line, a kind

Lord Castlereagh (and not his tough, uncompromising rival George Canning) directs British foreign policy.

Joseph von Fraunhofer uses the spectral lines discovered by Wollastone for spectral studies of solar compositions

Laplace, in his Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, states that “We can consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect that at a given instant were to know all the forces that set

France. Napoleon has only 20,000 men left, while Marmont and Mortier with another 20,000 hold off Blucher’s 100,000, and Marshal MacDonald protects the southern roads of Paris with 30,000 men against Schwarzenberg’s 122,000. But he still possesses his skill in speed and boldness, which still

France. The collapse of Blucher allows Napoleon to catch his breath, escape, and then attack Emmanuel de Saint-Priest’s detachment of 12,000 men, who is taken by surprise and defeated.

The Allies have occupied a vast area of eastern France. The Allied plan works, and Napoleon fails to re-form the Grande Armée in time.

January 1, 1814, Russian (Julian) calendar. Allied troops invade Switzerland (violating its neutrality) at Basel, targeting Napoleon’s France.

Battle of Leipzig. 11:00 a.m. First Allied breakthroughs through the four gates. Many thousands of Napoleon’s soldiers are still trying to escape. It’s chaos.

Battle of Leipzig. 7:00 a.m. Napoleon’s rearguard consists of Poniatowski’s Polish corps and MacDonald’s Italian, French, and German divisions. The Allied columns begin their advance toward the center of Leipzig.

Battle of Leipzig. Evening. After fierce fighting and heavy losses, the Russians edge closer to the Halle Gate to the south.

Battle of Leipzig. Afternoon. Bernadotte’s 60,000 men also arrive to lend support to the Allies.

Battle of Leipzig. Morning. The Allies, positioned in a semicircle west-southeast of the city, attack Napoleon along the entire line.

Battle of Leipzig. Evening. Napoleon gives orders to begin the retreat, but does nothing logistical to facilitate the exodus from Leipzig and the crossing of the Elster.

Battle of Leipzig. 8:00 PM. The first day ends in a tactical draw. But a draw is a strategic victory for the Allies, and Napoleon, who needs a decisive tactical victory, knows this.

Schwarzenberg’s vanguard begins to move north, toward Leipzig. The Leipzig campaign has begun.

Napoleon now understands that it is not in his best interest to continue pursuing Blucher: he therefore decides to launch a frontal attack at the head of Marmont and Victor’s guard, leaving Marshal MacDonald to face Blucher.

Allied troops entered Saxony.

massive Allied army commanded by Britain’s Arthur Wellesley defeats the French at Vitoria, Spain, thus ending the Spanish Civil War; the British are aided in the war by small bands of irregulars called guerrillas.

The old Russian Field Marshal Kutuzov, hero of the Napoleonic Wars, dies following a worsening of his health.

Napoleon advances from Erfurt toward Leipzig. The Allies deploy a little to the south, near Lutzen.

Russia. Finance Minister Dmitry Gur’ev, faced with the imminent prospect of a large deficit, has no choice but to print more money to reduce the deficit. He predicts that if there is another year of war, the Russian financial system will collapse completely. Gur’ev fears

On the Main River, 200,000 Napoleonic troops faced each other on the west bank, and 110,000 Russian and Prussian allies on the east bank. The allies had a much greater number of veterans and cavalry, but the French compensated with the presence of Napoleon.

Berlin, Prussia. Just after the French leave the city, the Russians enter. The images of Cossacks and soldiers with oriental features from the steppe on the streets of Berlin remain etched in the minds of German citizens.

Prussia. Yorck and Diebitsch sign the Tauroggen Convention, declaring the Prussian army neutral and excluded from Russian military operations. An immediate effect of the treaty is that all of East Prussia east of the Vistula immediately falls under Russian control. But Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm is

War of 1812. The Royal Navy implements a naval blockade of South Carolina ports.

Russia. At this juncture, it seems that Alexander’s plan is on the verge of success: annihilating Napoleon’s army and capturing Napoleon himself. But the Emperor has other weapons in store, not least his Guard, and will manage to return to France.

Russia. Chigarov’s Russian contingent guarding the Borisov Bridge over the Berezina River is overwhelmed by Napoleon’s vanguard, but the Russians manage to set fire to the bridge and destroy it.

Russia. The Russian Chichagov issues a proclamation among his troops demanding that all shorter than average French prisoners be captured and handed over to him, in search of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Russia. The bulk of Napoleon’s Grande Armee leaves Smolensk: the objective now is the Dnieper.

Napoleon enters Moscow. He establishes his headquarters in the Kremlin.

Battle of Borodino. 3:00 PM. The distances are so close that hundreds of French guns fire grapeshot directly at the Russian ranks. The Russians are forced to retreat from Semenovskoe a few hundred meters to the east. But they maintain discipline by digging in squares,

Battle of Borodino. 11:00 a.m. Several attacks and counterattacks follow, but the French are unable to break through the weakened Russian lines. On the Russian side, Bagration is wounded, and Major General Count Alexander Kutaisov is killed. His body is never found.

Battle of Borodino. 6:00 a.m. The Russian Guards Regiment is driven from the village of Borodino and pushed back across the Koloca River with heavy losses. The French attack under cover of fog. The French now face the bastions of Bagration’s arrows.

Borodino, 124 km from Moscow. Napoleon fields a staggering 587 cannons (at Waterloo he will bring 246, which will still be a lot). The Russians have 624 cannons, a huge number, but more importantly, they have many more 12-pounders than the French. Borodino is the

Borodino, late afternoon. Desperate efforts to entrench the Russian lines begin. They will continue throughout the night. The bastions known as “Bagration’s Arrows” are hastily constructed, complete with a scarp, counterscarp, and ditch, gabions and fascines, and embrasures for ten cannons (the other guns are

Smolensk, Russia. The Russians have abandoned the city, and Napoleon is its master. Now he can pursue them toward Moscow or conclude his campaign there and transform Belarus and Lithuania into formidable bastions for the following year’s campaign. But Napoleon is a gambler and decides

Russia. The Russian First Army leaves Drissa and retreats towards Vitebsk, trying to get ahead of Napoleon.

War of 1812. As part of the Anglo-American conflict, the United States invades Canada, led by General Hull who departs from Detroit.

Eve of the Russian Campaign. According to some historians (including the Russian Dominic Lieven), Napoleon entered the Russian Campaign with an advantage over the Tsar. He was defeated narrowly and by chance. It could have been otherwise. The American historian Paul Schroeder described Napoleon as

On the eve of the Russian Campaign. The French Empire governs 43 million people. With Northern Italy, which it governs, and the Confederation of the Rhine and Poland, which it controls, the population reaches 64 million. Russia has 40 million people.

Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign peace. The Tsar had been attacked six years earlier, immediately after Austerlitz. It seemed like an excellent opportunity for the Ottomans, but after years of war and the empty coffers of Constantinople, they were forced to accept peace.

United States. At the height of the crisis with the British, US President Madison asks Congress to grant him more power to manage the potential conflict. The British laugh at America’s military weakness: 6,000 soldiers and 16 ships versus 500,000 well-trained soldiers and 600 warships,

The Russo-Swedish alliance is signed. Among other things, it promises Bernadotte a Russian auxiliary corps to help him defeat the Danes.

Russia. 101,000 muskets were imported from Great Britain. Without them, it would have been impossible to equip the field infantry in the Russian Campaign. But lead was in short supply: it was secretly imported from Great Britain, but the Russian soldier found himself with only

Frenchman Nicholas Appert introduces sterilized canned foods

Napoleon founded the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa as a branch of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.

Russia. New Minister of War: Barclay de Tolly.

British Foreign Secretary Canning pushes to remove his rival Lord Castlereagh from the War Ministry.

At Wagram, on the outskirts of Vienna, not far from Austerlitz, Napoleon achieved his last victory

Lamarck discovers the phenomenon of the evolution of biological systems and formulates the theory of “transformism”

Adrien Marie Legendre publishes the book Theorie Des Nombres in which he proclaims that the prime numbers between 1 and N are N/(logN – 1.08366)

Rome. The French army occupies the Papal States and imprisons Pope Pius VII in the Quirinal Palace.

Humphry Davy freed calcium from its essential oxide, lime, through an electrolytic process, already exploited to discover potassium and sodium. However, it would take another century for large-scale industrial production. Calcium is also present in large percentages in marble, alabaster, plaster, ivory, bones, teeth, and

The UK’s surplus amounted to 14 million pounds a year, far exceeding its trade deficit. This allowed the British to finance their own army and that of their allies during the Napoleonic Wars. Thanks to key financial figures such as the German-Jewish naturalized Englishman Nathan

Humphry Davy, after discovering potassium and sodium in 1801, announced the discovery of calcium, magnesium, strontium, and barium, discovered by electrolyzing lime and magnesia, with mercury electrodes to capture the metals as soon as they were released, before they could burn.

War breaks out between France and Prussia

Mathematician Sophie Germain sent a message to her friend, French General Joseph-Marie Pernety, on the Prussian-Napoleonic front, asking him to guarantee the safety of Gauss, her correspondent by letter. Germain signed her letters with a male name to avoid prejudice, so Gauss was pleasantly surprised

German (Prussian) philosopher Immanuel Kant dies.

Englishman Richard Trevithick builds the first train at Tyolfil (UK)

William Henry Seward, who would go on to be a key figure in President Abraham Lincoln’s government team during the American Civil War, was born in New York.

The hypothesis, first proposed by Immanuel Kant (in 1755) and even earlier by Isaac Newton (although never published in written form), regarding the formation of the celestial system as the vortical motion of a primitive nebula, was revived and developed by Pierre-Simon de Laplace. Today,

Italy. Freemasonry spreads, and, encouraged by the imperial government, reaches 20,000 members, recruited primarily from the state bureaucracy. This fosters the rise of new men.

Italy. Jacobin Triennium. This is a revolutionary period in which the power of the Church and sovereigns is diminished. The term “Risorgimento” is coined, meaning the resurrection of the fatherland. Freemasonry and the lower clergy act as intermediaries.

Russia. Reign of Tsar Paul I, son of Catherine the Great.

Catherine the Great dies: her reign (1762-1796) was, according to many, one of the best periods in Russian history

Russia. Annual revenues amount to 73 million rubles, equivalent to 12 million pounds today.

Georgia, Caucasus. The city of Tbilisi is ravaged by the Shah of Persia’s troops. The Georgians face the possible extinction of their culture and perhaps their people. A few years later, the Russian intervention of the Tsar comes, almost as a salvation.

United States. American General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, after years of war with the Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Mingo, Wyandot, Delaware, Miami, and Shawnee Indian tribes, signs the Treaty of Greenville, in which ten Indian tribes renounce all claims to Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan in exchange for an

United States. The British sign the Jay’s Treaty, agreeing to abandon six forts on American soil. They will, however, continue to supply the American Indians with weapons and ammunition from Canadian forts such as Fort Malden in Ontario, just a few miles from Detroit.

Napoleon Bonaparte is promoted to general for his conduct during the siege of Toulon