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Paris, France

250 B.C.: Celtic people settle on the banks of the Seine River in what is now Paris. They call it Loukteih, meaning "marshy place."

52 B.C.: The Romans arrive in Paris. Julius Caesar holds an assembly in the city. They call the Gallic tribe that occupies the area the "Parisii." The Romans call the city Lutetia, a Latinized version of the Celtic name, Loukteih.

52 B.C.: Soon after Caesar leaves, The Parisii revolt against the Romans. Labienus, Caesar's lieutenant, defeats them.

250: St. Denis, Bishop of the Parisii people, is beheaded by the Romans in the area of Paris that is now Montmartre. Legend has it that he picks up his head after it is chopped off and walks several miles preaching a sermon. This is why St. Denis is always depicted headless, with his head in his hands.

280: The Barbarians destroy the city.

360: The city is renamed "Paris."

451: Attila the Hun heads toward Paris. A young nun named Geneviève encourages the Parisians to pray and stand firm. Attila and his legions of Huns avoid Paris and are defeated at Châlons. Geneviève is hailed as the city's savior and is later named the patron saint of Paris. She is also sainted and is now known as Saint Geneviève.

496: Clovis, king of the Merovingian Franks, becomes the first of the pagan barbarians to adopt Catholicism.

508: Clovis defeats the Visigoths and pushes them out of what is now France. He makes Paris the capital and settles there.

511: Clovis the Frank commissions the building of the cathedral of St. Etienne on the Île.

511: Saint Geneviève dies.

800s: Invading Vikings force the Parisians to construct a fortress on the Île de la Cité.

March 28, 845: The Vikings sack Paris. They collect a large ransom in exchange for leaving.

938: Hugh Capet, the eldest son of Hugh the Great, is born in Paris.

March 27, 972: Hugh Capet's son, Robert II, is born.

July 3, 987: Hugh Capet, count of Paris, is crowned King of France and becomes the first of the Capetian line of kings.

Oct. 24, 996: Hugh Capet dies in Paris and is succeeded by his son, Robert II.

1215: The University of Paris is founded.

1220: King Philippe-Auguste builds a square château-fort to protect the western side of the city. This château is developed and expanded by subsequent kings over the next 600 years and later becomes the Louvre.

1300s: The Black Death strikes the city.

1337: The Hundred Years War begins.

1400s: Urban revolts drive the royal court to abandon the city for almost 100 years.

1563: Construction is begun on the section of the Louvre known as the Tuileries Palace.

1643: King Louis XIV, the Sun King, begins his reign. He moves the royal residence from Paris to Versailles.

1673: The last of the Gothic portions of the Louvre are removed.

Nov. 21, 1694: Voltaire is born in Paris.

1715: King Louis XIV dies.

June 2, 1740: The Marquis de Sade is born in the Condé palace in Paris.

May 30, 1778: Voltaire dies in Paris. He is denied burial on church ground because of his previous criticism of the church.

1784: The Marquis de Sade, imprisoned previously in Vincennes, is transferred to the Bastille in Paris.

July 31, 1784: Writer Denis Diderot dies of emphysema in Paris and is buried in the the Eglise Saint-Roch.

July 2, 1789: The Marquis de Sade shouts from his cell in the Bastille: "They are killing the prisoners here!" It causes a small riot.

July 4, 1789: Sade is transferred to an insane asylum at Charenton-Saint-Maurice just outside of Paris.

July 13, 1789: A mob of Parisians storms the Bastille.

July 14, 1789: The Bastille surrenders to the citizens and the French Revolution has begun.

1792: The monarchy falls and the First Republic is proclaimed.

1793: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are guillotined. The Louvre becomes a public museum.

1794: Robespierre and the members of the revolutionary tribunal are guillotined.

1799: Napoléon enters Paris. Wishing to replicate the imperial style of ancient Rome, he orders the triumphal arches of the Carrousel and the Etoile, and the Vendôme Column.

Dec. 2, 1804: In the Cathedral of Notre Dame, having snatched the crown from the pope and put it on his own head, Napoléon declares himself Emperor and his wife Josephine Empress of the French.

June 18, 1815: Napoléon's army is defeated by Wellington at Waterloo.

June 22, 1815: Napoléon abdicates June 22 and is exiled to St-Helena in the south Atlantic. The Bourbons are briefly restored to the throne of France.

1830: Adolphe Thiers' journal "Le National" helps to bring about the July Revolution. Charles X is overthrown and replaced by Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King.

1832: A cholera epidemic kills 19,000 people.

1833: The Obelisk of Luxor arrives in Paris. A gift from the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha, it is a 3300-year old stone needle that bears hieroglyphics telling the story of Ramses II. It is put at the Place de Concorde in the spot where the statue of Louis XV was before the Revolution.

1848: Barricades erected during 3-day civil strife mark another revolution and the proclamation of the Second Republic. France has its first legislative assembly. Prince Louis Napoléon Bonaparte wins the presidency by 5 million votes.

1852: The castle that later becomes the Louvre is completed and is now one of the world's largest palaces, after 600 years of development and expansion.

1863: The revolutionary impressionist exhibit at the Salon des Refusés, featuring works by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Paul Cézanne.

1870: The Franco-Prussian war ends with a siege of Paris.

1871: The Paris Commune, a revolutionary Socialist government, takes over the city. They burn The Tuileries Palace and pull down Napoleon's column. The French Army under General MacMahon suppressses the Commune and 20,000 people die.

1875: Construction of the Opéra Garnier is completed.

1878: The International Exposition is held in Paris.

1884: Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin conceive of the idea for a tall tower in Paris.

Sept. 18, 1884: Eiffel registers a patent "for a new configuration allowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 metres".

1885: Victor Hugo dies in Paris.

Feb. 14, 1887: Soon after construction on the Eiffel Tower has begun, an article entitled "Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel" appears in the Le Temps newspaper. It is addressed to Monsieur Alphand, the World's Fair's director of works. It is signed by Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, Jr., Charles Gounod, William Bouguereau, Charles Garnier, and others. It reads in part: "We come, we writers, painters, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, which popular ill-feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel."

Feb. 14, 1887: In the same day's paper, Eiffel responds to the critics in an interview. He says: "For my part I believe that the Tower will possess its own beauty. Are we to believe that because one is an engineer, one is not preoccupied by beauty in one's constructions, or that one does not seek to create elegance as well as solidity and durability? Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony?"

1887-1889: During the period of construction, the Eiffel Tower is referred to by artists and intellectuals as: "this truly tragic street lamp," "this belfry skeleton," "this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders," "a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fished out with freestone or brick."

1889: The World's Fair is held in Paris. The Eiffel Tower receives two million visitors and is held in awe as the world's tallest building.

1900: Paris hosts the 1900 Summer Olympics. The first Métro line opens, running from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot.

1902: James Joyce moves to Paris.

1914-1918: WWI brings 2 million American soldiers to France. Paris is saved from the Germans by the Battle of the Marne.

1918: American Prohibition begins, leading many American intellectuals and writers to move to Paris.

Nov. 9, 1918: Writer Guillaume Apollinaire dies at his apartment in Paris of influenza during the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic.

1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed with France attempting to exact reparations from Germany.

1920: The Unknown Soldier is buried at the Arc de Triomphe.

1921: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley Richardson move to Paris.

1922: James Joyce's Ulysses is published by Sylvia Beach, owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company.

May 18, 1922: Proust and Joyce meet for the first time in Paris.

Nov. 8, 1922: Proust dies. James Joyce attends his funeral.

1924: Paris hosts the 1924 Summer Olympics.

1928: Hemingway leaves Paris.

1937: The International Exhibition is held in Paris.

Early 1940: James Joyce and his family flee Paris in fear of the advancing German army.

June 1940: Paris falls to German occupying forces.

1840: Napoléon's body moves through Paris during his funeral procession.

1944: The Allies land at Normandy beach. Hitler orders General von Choltitz to destroy Paris.

Aug. 24, 1944: General von Choltitz surrenders and Paris is finally free from the Germans. General Leclerc enters the city.

Aug. 26, 1944: General Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.

1946: France adopts a new constitution and French women win the right to vote.

1958: Charles de Gaulle is elected president.

1960s: The Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower), a modern skyscraper, is constructed, causing many to complain that it ruins the skyline created by Haussman.

1962: Algeria regains independence. Approximately 700,000 French colonists from Algeria return to France. The population of Paris grows instantly to 1.2 million.

1964: Hemingway's memoirs of his years in Paris, A Moveable Feast, are published posthumously.

May 1968: "Les évènements de Mai 1968" ("The Events of May 1968") occur, with 9 million works going on strike, student demonstrations, and the resignation of president Charles De Gaulle.

1969: Georges Pompidou is elected president.

1977: The first mayor of Paris since 1871 is elected. The architecturally controversial Centre Pompidou is inaugurated in the old Beaubourg neighborhood.

1981: France's first socialist president, François Mitterrand, is elected.

1986: The Orsay Museum and the Cité des Sciences at La Villette open.

1988: François Mitterrand is reelected.

1992: Disneyland Paris opens in the suburbs of Paris.

1995: Jacques Chirac becomes president of France.

1999: A small square in Paris near the Bibliothèque Nationale in the 13th arrondissement is named after James Joyce.

Oct. 29, 2004: Ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrives in Paris for medical treatment.

Nov. 11, 2004: Arafat dies in Paris.

May 29, 2005: French voters reject the European Union's proposed constitution.

July 25, 2005: American Lance Armstrong wins his sixth Tour de France.

Oct. 19, 2005: Nicolas Sarkozy, France's interior minister, declares a "war without mercy" on violence in Parisian suburbs.

Oct. 25, 2005: While visiting the Paris suburb of Argenteuil to speak about eliminated crime in that neighborhood, Sarkozy is pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 27, 2005: Two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, are electrocuted in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after running from a checkpoint and allegedly being chased by police. A third youth receives serious burns but survives. Blaming the deaths on the police, riots begin. After local youths hear of the deaths, they begin rioting. 23 cars are burned and several buildings vandalized. Riot police are deployed and pelted with stones and bottles.

Oct. 28, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, four hundred youths hurl Molotov cocktails, stones, injuring 23 police. Police respond by firing rubber bullets into the crowd. On this day 29 cars are set on fire and 13 people detained.

Oct. 29, 2005: During the day, 500 people in Clichy-sous-Bois hold a silent march in honor of the two teenagers who were electrocuted. That night, the riots resume. 20 cars are set on fire and 9 people are detained by police.

Oct. 30, 2005: In Clichy-sous-Bois, six police officers are injured, 8 vehicles are set on fire, and 11 people are arrested. A mosque is hit with a teargas grenade, incensing the Muslim community in the suburb and fueling the riots. French officials do not acknowledge that police fired the grenade, saying it could have been anyone.

Oct. 31, 2005: Sarkozy vows to stop the riots. He asks to meet with the families of the electrocuted teens, but they refuse. The brother of one of the victims, Siyakah Traore, says calls Sarkozy "very, very incompetent. He asks to speak to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin instead. On this day 68 cars are set on fire and 19 people are arrested.

Nov. 1, 2005: Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin meets with the families of the dead teenagers. On this day, 180 cars are set on fire and 34 people are arrested.

Nov. 2, 2005: A spokesperson for President Chirac says: "Tempers must calm down. The law must be applied in a spirit of dialogue and respect. A lack of dialogue and an escalation of disrespectful behaviour would lead to a dangerous situation. Zones without law cannot exist in the republic." On this day, the riots spread to 22 suburbs surrounding Paris. In the suburb of Sevran, youths stop a bus. All of the passengers are able to escape except one: a 56-year-old handicapped woman. A youth pours gasoline on her and sets her on fire, causing her third degree burns to 20% of her body. He then throws a Molotov cocktail onto the bus.

Nov. 3, 2005: The rioting spreads to other French cities, including Rouen, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Strasbourg.

Nov. 4, 2005: French officials open a criminal investigation into the deaths of the two teenagers. Prime Minister Villepin

Nov. 5, 2005: 1,295 cars are burned throughout France. 349 people are arrested.

Nov. 6, 2005: President Chirac addresses the public about the riots for the first time. Speaking from the steps of the Elysee Palace after an emergency meeting of the national security council, he says that an "absolute priority is to reestablish security and public order ... The law should have the final say, and the republic is determined to be stronger than those who want to spread violence and fear. Those people will be apprehended, judged and punished."

Nov. 7, 2005: Overnight between the 6th and the 7th, the violence spreads into Paris' 17th arrondissement, with six cars being set on fire in the area that stretches from Montmartre in the west to the Arc de Triomphe.

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