On 9th November 1799 a Corsican general staged a coup d'état, overthrowing the French Directory, one of the governments of France during the revolutionary period.

The general, born Napoleone di Buonaparte, but better known as Napoléon Bonaparte, had returned to France from Egypt where he had been fighting British forces under Admiral Nelson (and where his forces had discovered the Rosetta Stone). Together with two directors, his brother, Talleyrand and the speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Napoleon successfully overthrew the Directory and became "first consul" of France, an office he held for ten years.

Image: François Bouchot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bouchot_-_Le_general_Bonaparte_au_Conseil_des_Cinq-Cents.jpg)