1776:
Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

1789:
French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille.

1793:
Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin—a machine that, by making cotton profitable, spurs the expansion of slave labor in the southern United States.

1801:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is established.

1803:
Administration of President Thomas Jefferson negotiates the Louisiana Purchase from France, whereby the United States doubles its geographic size, adding some 827,000 square miles (2,144,500 sq km)—all for the price of only $15 million.

1812:
Napoleon invades Russia in June, but by October, his army, cold and hungry, is in retreat.

1815:
Napoleon returns from Elba, and his supporters attempt to restore him as French ruler; but just three months later, forces led by the Duke of Wellington defeat his armies at Waterloo. Napoleon spends the remainder of his days as a prisoner on the island of St. Helena in the south...