KEY DATES OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE

1564: A French Huguenot colony is briefly established in the New World at Fort Caroline (now Jacksonville, FL)
1605: French settlement of Port Royal is established in Acacia (now Nova Scotia)
1608: Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec City, the future capital of New France
1624: French begin to settle French Guiana
1664: French East India Company is established
1697: France takes possession of Saint Domingue from Spain
1682: Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle names Louisiana in honor of French king
1699: Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville establishes a permanent settlement in Louisiana
1756: France opposes Great Britain in North America’s French and Indian War
1756: The Seven Years’ War between France and Great Britain begins
1763: The Treaty of Paris divides France’s North American holdings between Britain and Spain
1789: The French Revolution begins
1791: Toussaint l’Ouverture leads a massive slave revolt on Saint Domingue
1799: Napoleon Bonaparte comes to power
1803: Napoleon sells the colony of Louisiana to the United States
1804: Saint Domingue gains independence as Haiti
1814: Napoleon abdicates and Louis XVIII becomes king of France
1815: Great Britain concedes portions of Cape Verde to the French
1830: Charles II abdicates the French throne and Louis-Philippe becomes king
1830: France invades Algeria and begins a 17-year-long conquest
1831: Civil wars erupt in the French colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe
1843: Tahiti becomes a French protectorate
1848: Revolution brings Napoleon III to power in Second Empire
1853: New Caledonia becomes a French protectorate
1854: France enters the two-year Crimean War as a part of the Western Alliance against Russia
1859: France enters the Austro-Italian War
1870: France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War sparks the Paris Commune and the Third Republic
1878: Melanesians revolt in New Caledonia over land rights issues
1881: France invades Tunisia and establishes a protectorate
1884: France takes over Tonkin and Annam (now Vietnam)
1895: France invades West Africa, followed by Madagascar
1887: French Indochina is formed from Tonkin, Annam, Cambodia, Cochin-China, and Laos
1907: France invades Morocco, which becomes a protectorate in 1912
1918: France gains control of former Turkish territories following World War I
1945: French colonies overrun during World War II are restored
1946: The Union Franc¸aise is established to politically unite the former French colonies
1954: France withdraws from Indochina due to strength of the native independence movement and loss at Dies Bier Phu
1958: General Charles de Gaulle becomes president of France
1958: The Union Franc¸aise is replaced by the Communaute´ Franc¸aise
1962: Algeria gains independence from France

In the book 'Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450' Thomas Benjamin, editor in chief, Thomsom Gale, Farmington Hills,U.S.A, 2007. p. 383. Edited to be posted  by Leopoldo Costa.