Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 and died May 5, 1821 at the age of 51, by what many thinks to be stomach cancer.
Napoleon is a very well-known man in today’s history. He is mostly known for the rumor of his short stature, and also for leading an army that conquered a lot of Europe in the early 19th century. He was a brilliant military strategist. After he seized political power in France, he crowned himself emperor in 1804. However, after losing the battle of the Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled and imprisoned on Saint Helena Island where he died on May 5, 1821.
A few things people never knew about Napoleon:
he had military training- Napoleon was born on a large island named Corsica, off the coast of Italy, into a family of nobility. He parents had enough money to send him to a school in France called École Militaire. During his first year, his father died, forcing him to graduate early to help his family. He ended up forty-second out of a class of fifty-eight, and at sixteen he became a French Army Officer.
His first wife was thirty-two and he was twenty- six when they got married. His wife subtracted four years off of her age, on the marriage certificate, and he added eight-teen months to his in order to seem closer in age.
Napoleon was not short. The rumor that Napoleon was short started during his lifetime, after he was shown that way on a cartoon drawn of him. In reality he was about five foot six.
He enjoyed witting romance novels. Many people have these stereotypes of how a man should be and act and do, but Napoleon, a general, emperor and revolutionary, proved them to be wrong. He once wrote Clisson et Eugénie, the story of a young soldier in love. I personally have not read it, but it does sound like a really great read.
Napoleon tried to kill himself. After he was forced to abdicate, he was promised a comfortable and peaceful life. It still however depressed Napoleon, to the point of suicide. He attempted to end his life with a pill of poison, the pill however was old and therefor made him quite ill instead of killing him.
We never think of famous men and women as humans like you and me, but that’s all they were, humans. The only exception is the impact they made on our history, but that doesn’t have to be an exception. We can also make a difference, we just have to shove aside our fear and differences, and work together to change our world for the better.
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