Year by year · 18th century

1793

1793 in world history: 11 events, 14 births, 12 deaths, 2 works, 2 states founded and 3 that came to an end. 1,281 recorded states existed that year.

Events

  1. 9 January

    Blanchard makes the first balloon flight in North America

    Watched by President George Washington, the French aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard ascended from a prison yard in Philadelphia. He landed some 46 minutes later in Deptford, New Jersey.

    North America

  2. 21 January

    Louis XVI is guillotined in Paris

    Convicted of conspiracy against the nation, the former king was executed in the Place de la Révolution. His death set revolutionary France against the crowned heads of Europe.

    Paris

  3. 1 February

    Revolutionary France declares war on Britain and the Dutch Republic

    Days after executing Louis XVI, the National Convention declared war on Britain and the Netherlands. The conflict that followed lasted, with brief pauses, until Waterloo in 1815.

    Dutch Republic

  4. 10 June

    National Museum of Natural History is founded in Paris

    The Convention reorganised the royal botanical garden as the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Scientists there, including Lamarck and Cuvier, transformed biology and palaeontology.

    Paris

  5. 1 August

    France's Convention adopts the metric system

    The National Convention decreed a provisional metre, based on a fraction of the Earth's meridian, as France's unit of length. The decimal metric system has since been adopted almost worldwide.

  6. 10 August

    The Louvre opens as a public museum

    The revolutionary government opened the Muséum central des arts in the former royal palace, on the first anniversary of the monarchy's fall. The Louvre became one of the world's greatest museums.

    Louvre

  7. 18 September

    George Washington lays the cornerstone of the US Capitol

    President Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol in a Masonic ceremony. Congress first met in the unfinished building in November 1800.

  8. 16 October

    Marie Antoinette is guillotined in Paris

    After a two-day trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, the former queen Marie Antoinette was executed on the Place de la Révolution. She was 37, and her husband Louis XVI had been executed nine months earlier.

    Paris

  9. 3 November

    Olympe de Gouges is guillotined

    The playwright Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, was executed during the Terror for writings attacking the Jacobins.

  10. Crisis

    Second Partition of Poland

    The Second Partition of Poland was the annexation of large parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russia and Prussia in 1793.

ProfileState1099 states with a known seat in 1793Open the atlas at 1793 →

Wars and longer events

Born in 1793 14

Died in 1793 12

Works 2

States founded 2

States that came to an end 3

Great speeches

Toussaint Louverture at Camp TurelToussaint Louverture

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APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). 1793. In The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1793
MLA
“1793.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1793. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “1793.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1793.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘1793’, The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1793 (Accessed: ).