Episode Eight: Fracture

Josephine was the great love of Napoleon's life, but in late 1809, he had their marriage annulled -- how had it come to this? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

We examine Napoleon's private life, with a special focus on the most important person in it: the charming and controversial Empress of the French, Josephine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

In the summer of 1809, General Sir Arthur Wellesley led a small British army into Spain. While the war raged on, Napoleon was also picking a political fight with a powerful enemy: the Roman Catholic Church. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

At the turn of the nineteenth century, two waves of revolutions swept the Atlantic world, disrupting the social order and ushering in a new democratic-republican experiment whose effects rippled across continents and centuries. The first wave of revolutions in the late 1700s (whi ... Show More

In the summer and Autumn of 1792 - with the Prussians bearing down on Paris, the streets thronged with the stirring swell of the Marseillaise, but also the rotting bodies of those brutally killed during the September Massacres - the French Revolution bore a new symbol of optimism ... Show More

Le 4 juillet 1776, les colons américains se déclarent indépendants de leur métropole, la Grande-Bretagne.  C'est un acte de plus de la révolution américaine.  Cette guerre d'indépendance va aboutir à la première libération de colonies sur leur métropole, à l'établissement d'une r ... Show More

With seismic antecedents such as the Glorious Revolution in England and the American War of Independence, what was it about the French Revolution that saw it become arguably the most important episode in all early modern political history? And what unique combination of factors c ... Show More

Les guerres de religion qui déchirent le royaume de France au XVIe siècle sont d'une violence extrême.Et dans la terrible liste des atrocités commises pendant cette période, on trouve un massacre de civils qui marque profondément les esprits. Le 24 août 1572, des milliers de prot ... Show More

Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in wa ... Show More

‘Still more traitors, still more treason…" It is 1792 and France has been at war since April; it is not going well. In Paris, the Tuileries Palace has been stormed, and the royal family imprisoned. Meanwhile, tensions are rising between the main political factions of the Revolut ... Show More

The 1790s remain one of the most important decades in modern Irish history. After years of rising tensions, the island was rocked by the 1798 Rebellion—the largest uprising in Irish history. In just a few months, more people perished than in all the conflicts of the 20th century ... Show More

<p><em>This episode is part of a wider series on the 1798 Rebellion, but you can enjoy it as a stand-alone story.</em></p><br><p>When the American Revolution broke out in the 1770s, it sent shock waves across the Atlantic, transforming Irish politics and society. To explore this ... Show More

À première vue, La Liberté guidant le peuple d’Eugène Delacroix semble tout droit sortie de la Révolution française de 1789 : une femme aux seins nus brandit le drapeau tricolore, une foule en armes avance sur des cadavres, et l’ambiance est à l’insurrection. Beaucoup s’imaginent ... Show More