French Directory

State · 1796–1799 CE · at its largest around 1799 CE

The five-member executive that governed France after the Terror, a period of war and political instability ended by Napoleon Bonaparte's coup of 18 Brumaire.

On its lands while it lasted

Kingdom of Kongo (c. 1390–1914 CE): Central African kingdom with its capital at Mbanza Kongo; after Portuguese contact in 1483 its rulers adopted Christianity, and it later became deeply entangled in the Atlantic slave trade.
Middle Passage (c. 1526–1866 CE): The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas. Of about 12.5 million people embarked between the 16th and 19th centuries, some 1.8 million died on the crossing.
Slave trade, Angola to Brazil (c. 1550–1850 CE): The largest single branch of the Atlantic slave trade carried millions of captives from West Central Africa, above all Luanda, directly to Brazilian ports such as Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, until Brazil ended imports in 1850.
Ashanti Empire (1701–1901 CE): Akan state founded by Osei Tutu with its capital at Kumasi, which grew wealthy on gold and trade and resisted British expansion in a series of wars.
George Washington (1732 CE – 1799 CE): Commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and first President of the United States (1789–1797).
Thomas Jefferson (1743 CE – 1826 CE): Principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third US President, who made the Louisiana Purchase.
Toussaint Louverture (c. 1743 CE – 1803 CE): Formerly enslaved general who led the Haitian Revolution and governed Saint-Domingue; he was seized by the French and died in prison in France.
Edward Jenner (1749 CE – 1823 CE): English country doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, who in 1796 showed that inoculation with cowpox protected against smallpox, pioneering vaccination.
Napoleon (1769 CE – 1821 CE): Corsican-born general who seized power in France in 1799 and crowned himself Emperor in 1804. He conquered much of Europe before his defeat in 1815 and died in exile on Saint Helena.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 CE – 1827 CE): Composer born in Bonn who worked in Vienna from 1792. Despite growing deafness he wrote works bridging the Classical and Romantic eras.
Jane Austen (1775 CE – 1817 CE): English novelist whose six novels, including Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), portray the lives of the landed gentry with wit and irony.
Simón Bolívar (1783 CE – 1830 CE): Caracas-born leader who led the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia from Spain, known as El Libertador.
Haitian Revolution (1791–1804 CE): Uprising of enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue that abolished slavery and created Haiti, the first state founded by formerly enslaved people.
Smallpox vaccination (1796 CE): In 1796 Edward Jenner, a country doctor at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, showed that inoculation with cowpox protected against smallpox. It was the first vaccine.
Rosetta Stone (1799 CE): French soldiers found a stele at Rosetta bearing a decree of 196 BCE in hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek; it became the key to Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphs in 1822.