Napoleon Bonaparte rose from a lieutenant in the army to become emperor of the French. Many of the reforms and institutions he set up still exist in the French government and in French society. The empire he created through war and diplomacy was the largest since Roman times. Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on August 15, 1769, Napoleon was the son of a lawyer. Most people living on Corsica were of Italian heritage, but the island came under French rule a year before Napoleon's birth. That made him a French citizen. So he entered a French military school when he was ten.

An excellent student, Napoleon attended the famed military academy in Paris in 1784. He graduated a year later, receiving the rank of lieutenant in the French army. In 1789, the French Revolution broke out. Frenchmen were divided over the Revolution, but Napoleon supported it. While mob violence raged in...