Learn about important dates in French and francophone history: famous birthdays, holidays and celebrations, and other milestones. If the above does not match today's date or you wish to choose a specific date, please click here.

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Birthdays

1580 - Charles Annibal Fabrot (French lawyer)

1613 - François de La Rochefoucauld (French writer)

1715 - Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval (French artillery officer and engineer)

1890 - Frank Martin (Swiss composer)

1894 - Jean Renoir (French film director)

1926 - Jean-Pierre Serre (French mathematician)

Deaths

1700 - André Le Nôtre (French landscape architect, King Louis XIV's gardener)

1701 - Edmé Boursault (French writer)

1842 - Pierre Baillot (French violinist and composer)

1883 - Joseph Plateau (Belgian physicist)

1945 - André Tardieu (French Prime Minister)

Milestones/Events

1635 - France colonized Martinique

1656 - France and England signed peace treaty

1812 - Napoleon's army reached the Kremlin in Moscow

1873 - Franco-Prussian War: Last German troops left France upon completion of payment of indemnity

1914 - World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France

1916 - World War I: Tanks used for the first time, at the Battle of the Somme

1955 - Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, published in Paris

1975 - Corsica divided into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud

1990 - France announced it would send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf

1994 - Algeria: Muslim fundamentalists murdered 16 people

Errors and Omissions

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