1790
Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
The Irish-born Whig, once friend of American independence, now wrote a hot-blooded attack on the Paris Revolution: it had burned tradition and mathematics-lovers would hand it to a soldier on horseback. Paine answered with Rights of Man. Modern conservatism and modern liberalism began arguing in the same season. Burke's prediction of military dictatorship, dismissed by radicals at the time, proved uncannily accurate within a decade.
Tay Son Reunify Vietnam
Having defeated both the Nguyen lords in the south and the Trinh in the north - and repelled a Qing invasion - the Tay Son brothers briefly reunified Vietnam under their own rule. Quang Trung, the ablest of them, reformed the army and script. He died suddenly in 1792, and the unity did not survive him.
Nootka Crisis
Spanish officers seized British trading ships at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. Britain mobilized its fleet and threatened war. Spain, deserted by its French ally (now distracted by revolution), backed down and signed a convention. The Pacific Northwest's imperial future had been decided without any Northwesterners voting. The convention opened the coast to all nations and effectively ended Spain's claim to exclusive sovereignty over the Pacific Northwest.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
The National Assembly turned French priests into salaried state officials, elected locally. Half the clergy refused the new oath. Peasants in the Vendée, Brittany, and the south began to see the Revolution as a war on God. The rupture with Rome would deepen French politics for a century and a half.
Festival of the Federation
A year after the Bastille fell, 300,000 Parisians gathered on the Champ de Mars for a secular mass on liberty altars. Talleyrand celebrated. Lafayette swore an oath. Louis XVI, still king, swore one too. For an afternoon, it seemed the Revolution might end peacefully in a constitutional monarchy. It did not.