Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 to 5 May 1821)
Born in Corsica1, Died @ St. Helena island in the Atlantic
Some historians argue that Napoleon resembles later “revolutionary dictators” such as Vladimir Lenin or Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in one sense: they used authoritarian power to modernise and restructure society. But Napoleon did it much earlier, when Europe was still dominated by hereditary monarchies.
References
- Corsica island near Sardinia island owned by Italy (where Antonio Gramsci was born) became part of France just before Napoleon was born. It had previously been controlled by the Genoan Republic, in Italy. Napoleon’s first words were Italian! Today, you can still visit the house where Napoleon was born, which has become a museum. ↩︎