French History Facts

🇫🇷 French history, one fact at a time | Kings, revolutions & forgotten stories | New post every day ⚔️

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

4/ And the person who turned the tide? A 17-year-old peasant girl from a small village in eastern France. Joan of Arc changed the course of the war — and was burned at the stake for it.
#HundredYearsWar #FrenchHistory #JoanOfArc #Medieval

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

The Hundred Years' War

1/ France and England fought the Hundred Years' War from 1337 to 1453.
That's 116 years of conflict. 🧵

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

3/ The war began over a simple question: who had the right to rule France? It ended with France driving the English out of almost all French territory.

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

5/ Today it welcomes 7 million visitors a year. The most visited monument in the world — that almost didn't survive.

#EiffelTower #Paris #FrenchHistory #HistoryFacts

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

THREAD 5 — The Eiffel Tower

1/ The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be torn down after 20 years. 🧵

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

4/ During WWI, it jammed German communications and helped save Paris. The tower that Paris wanted to destroy ended up helping to save it.

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

5/ The cake quote spread. The truth didn't. History loves a good villain, even a fictional one.
#MarieAntoinette #FrenchHistory #HistoryMyths #DidYouKnow

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

Marie Antoinette

1/ Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake." 🧵

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

4/ But history needed a villain for the Revolution. A young foreign queen who loved fashion and parties was the perfect target.

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

5/ The Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre in 1914. Its theft made it the most famous painting in the world. Before the robbery, it was just another painting on the wall.
#FrenchHistory #MonaLisa #Louvre #HistoryFacts

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

The Mona Lisa Theft

1/ In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.
The thief? A Louvre employee named Vincenzo Peruggia. 🧵

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

4/ The painting stayed hidden in Peruggia's apartment in Paris for two years. He was only caught when he tried to sell it to a gallery in Florence.

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

4/ France didn't officially abolish the death penalty until 1981. For 200 years, the Revolution's most famous invention kept doing its job.
#FrenchHistory #Guillotine #DidYouKnow #FrenchRevolution

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

The Guillotine

1/ The guillotine is a symbol of the French Revolution.
But most people don't know how recently it was still being used. 🧵

[French History Facts @FrenchHist]

3/ 1977. The year Star Wars came out. The year Elvis died. The year the first Apple II computer was sold.