Napoleon

On 26 February 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba and walked back into power without firing a shot. The gamble lasted one hundred days and ended at Waterloo.

On 22 January 1808, the Portuguese royal court arrived in Brazil after fleeing Napoleon. The colony became the empire's capital, Britain got the trade access it had always wanted, and Portugal spent a decade governing itself from the wrong continent.

On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was executed at the Place de la Révolution. The vote for his death passed by 361 to 319 - a margin of forty-two deputies. What followed made the king look like the easy part.