Napoleon Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, and was given the name Napoleone Buonaperte. He was the second of eight children of Carlo and Letizia Buonaperte, both of the Corsican-Italian gentry. Before Napoleone, no Buonaparte had ever been a professional soldier. His father Carlo, was a lawyer who had fought for Corsican independence, but after the French occupied the island in 1768, he served as a prosecutor and a judge and entered the French aristocracy as a count. Through his father's influence, Napoleone was educated at the expense of King Louis XVI, at Brienne...

• Word Count: 2604
• Approx Pages: 10

How is it that Napoleon, one of the best military leaders in all of history and ruler of the powerful French empire, was ever defeated? As history has shown, empires come to ruins because of the many factors they deal with maintaining control. Napoleon had many factors in his favor that made him a feared and powerful man, but it was not so much the battles he lost that lead to his downfall; it was the struggles that he faced in his own empire that lead to his end as emperor. Some people would credit the defeat of Napoleon to the losses that he suffered in Russia and at Waterloo. Not only is th...

• Word Count: 2770
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School