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The turn of 18th and 19th centuries were a period marked by famines such a the famine that preceded the French Revolution, the Bengal Famine (1769-1773), and a Czech famine (1770-1771). 1770s: The British East India Company was dominating the Rajas of India. This was relevant to Napoleon's story because the reason he wanted to invade Egypt was so he could send troops in support of Indian enemies of Britain. Additionally, British opium production in India set the stage for the later Opium Wars. 1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution was a savage uprising by Haitian slaves against their brutal French masters. Historians generally agree that this event forced Napoleon to sell France's remaining North American possessions to America with the Louisiana Purchase (1804). 1807: Britain declares slave trade illegal. 1810s-1820s Latin American Wars of Independence (think Simon Bolivar, the guy Bolivia's named after). Nations to watch out for in the game Napoleon: Total War are Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the Maratha Empire in India, the Qing Dynasty in China, and the United States. All were major powers of the era. Before the Napoleonic era was the French Revolution (1789-1799). The French had some famines, and food riots, and then killed their king and most of their nobles for ineffectual government, and a tremendous disparity between the haves and have-nots. Napoleon played both sides of the fence during the Revoution. He then gained the notice of the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety when he drove British troops supporting the royalists out of Toulon (1793). These gains were lost when he refused a deployment as an infantry commander. This might have ended his career had an uprising by people disenfranchised from the latest Republican government not occurred (1794). Napoleon was the best general officer available to command the ad hoc forces defending the new government; and he made effective use of cannons to drive away the mobs. (They did riot control differently back then. This was a couple decades after the Boston Massacre.) Now I should take a moment to mention that the French military was in pretty good shape at this time, in spite of the social upheaval of the Revolution. The revolutionary governments learned early on that they wanted the soldiers or at least the good ones on their side; and they gave much patronage to the military. And, the intrigues and low intensity warfare created the usual military darwinism that had a way of trimming the fat. On top of that, the advent of paper currency put much more money into circulation, which especially meant that more enlisted men than ever before could draw wages; and the French Army's ranks swelled. In the meantime, while France had not the timbers to build a navy like Britain's (thanks to their under-exploiting their New World resources), France's foundries produced a number of cannons that the other nations of the world couldn't hope to match. This set the stage for France to have an almost unstoppable military force on land. Napoleon successfully invaded Italy (1796-1797). He demonstrated his understanding of the value of propaganda by starting multiple newspapers. These helped him to put a positive spin on the controversial Egyptian campaign (1798). Mind you this is all the stuff he did before he became ruler of France by leading a military coup then politically outmaneuvering his rivals (1799). Then later he crowned himself emperor (1804). Much of the rest you should know. Napoleon defeated the Austrians at Austerlitz (1805). The Austrians had thought the bulk of their allies the Russians' forces were mere days away because of a mix-up due to the differences between their calendars. And, Davout's III corps arrived at a critical moment of the battle in one of the most epic examples of a forced march in history. Also in 1805, the British under the command of Lord Admiral Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. (At the end of the trailer for Napoleon: Total War Napoleon orders the arson of the HMS Victory within sight of the white cliffs of Dover on the English side of the English Channel. the HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship. Of course nothing like that ever happened in real life.) Napoleon invaded Spain (1807) where French troops continued to meet fierce guerrilla resistance (1808-1814) supported by British expeditionary forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Then came the invasion of Russia (1812). That would have been the end of Napoleon's career; but he left exile in Elba and attempted to regain his old glory (1815). Allied forces met him at Waterloo; and that really was the end of his career as they exiled him much farther away this time to St. Helena.