After Waterloo in 1815 Napoleon was sent into exile for the second and final time. He died there six years later. Where?
Saint Helena, in the middle of the South Atlantic about 2,000 km from the nearest mainland (Angola). The British chose it specifically because the remoteness made escape essentially impossible. Elba was Napoleon's first exile, after his 1814 abdication; he escaped from Elba in March 1815 and reclaimed the throne for the 'Hundred Days' before Waterloo. Corsica was his birthplace (1769). Devil's Island was the French penal colony where [Alfred Dreyfus](/articles/dreyfus-devils-island) was held 80 years later, but Napoleon was never there.
Read the full facts →Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a French military commander and emperor who dominated European politics from his coup in 1799 to his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. His campaigns conquered most of continental Europe, his civil code became the foundation of European civil law, and his consolidation of post-revolutionary institutional reform shaped modern European government.
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