The celebrated French general and emperor, Napoleon I, was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, in 1769. His original name was Napoleone Buonaparte. France had aquirred Corsica only some fifteen months before his birth, and in his early life, he became a Corsican nationalist, who considered the French to be oppressors. Napoleon was sent to military academies in France, and when he graduated in 1785, at the age of sixteen, he became a second lieutanent in the French army. Four years later, the French Revolution errupted, and within a few years, the new French government was involved in wars with several foreign powers. Napoleons first opportunanity to distinguish himself came in 1793, at the siege of Toulon ( in which the French recaptured the city from the British), where he was in charge of the artilery. By this time, he had abanned his ideas as a Corsican Nationalist, and considered himself a Frenchmen. His accomplishments at Toulon won him promotion to brigadier and general, and in 1796, he was given command of the French army in Italy. There, in 1796-97, Napoleon achieved a spectacular series of victories. A hero, then he returned to Paris. In 1798, Napoleon headed a French invasion of Egypt. The campaign was a disaster. On the land, Napoleon's armies were generally sucessful. But the British Navy, under the leadership of Lord Nelson, destroyed the French fleet , and in 1799 Napoleon abananed his army in Egypt, and returned to France. Back in France, Napoleon found that the public remembered the the sucess of his Italian campaign rather than the disasterous invasion of Egypt. Capitalizing on this, a month after his return , Napoleon took part in a coup d'etat, together with the Abbe 'Sieyes and others. The coup resulted in a new government, the consulate, with napoleon holding the office of first consul. Although , an elaborate constitutuion was adopted, and was ratified by a popular plebisite, it was only a mask for the military dictatorship of Napoleon, who had soon gained the ascendancy over the conspirators. Napoleon rise to power was, thus, incredibly rapid. In August 1793, before the siege of Toulon, Napoleon had been totally unknown twenty-four year old minor officer of not-quite French birth. Less than six years later, he was the undisputed ruler of France-a position he was to hold for fourteen years. During his years in power, Napoleon instituted major revisions in the administration of France and in the French legal system. For example, he reformed the financial structure and judiciary; he created the Bank of France and the university of France; and he centralized the French administration. Althrough, these significant impact would only have a big impact on France, not the world. He also introduced a series of French civil code, the famous code Napoleon. In many ways, the code embodied the idea of the French Revolution. For example, under the code there were no privaledges of birth, and all men were equal under the law. It was always Napoleon's policy to insist that he was the defender of the Revolution. Nevertherless, in 1804 he had himself proclaimed Emperor of France. In addition, Napoleon installed three of his brothers on the thrones of other European states. In 1802, at Amiens, Napoleon had signed a peace treaty with England, giving France a respite after a more than a decade of almost continious warfare. However, the following year the peace treaty broke down, and a long series of wars with England and the allies followed. Through, Napoleon's army won victories on land, England could not be conquered unless it's Navy was defeated. Unfortuanately for Napoleon, the English won a crucial battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the English navy won an overwhelming victory. Although Napoleon's greatest victory (at Austerlitz, against the armies of Austria and Russia) came only six weeks after Trafalgar, it did not really compensate the naval disaster. In 1808, Napoleon foolishly involved France in a long and pointless war on the Iberian peninsuala, in which French armies were bogged down for many years. Napoleon's decisive blunder was however, was his Russian campaign. In 1807, Napoleon had met with the Tsar, and in the Treaty of Tilst, they had vowed eternal friendship. But the alliance gradually deteriorated, and in June 1812, Napoleon led his Grand Armee' into Russia. The results are well known, the Russian army generally avoided fighting pitched battles against Napoleon, and he was able to advance rapidly. By September, he had occupied Moscow. However, the Russians set fire to the city, and most of it was destroyed. After waiting five weeks in Moscow ( in a vain of hope that the Russians would sue for peace) Napoleon finally decided to retreat. Other European countries, such as Austria and Prussia, realized, that they could overthrow the French yoke. They joined forces, and at the Battle of Leipzig, in October 1813, Napoleon suffered another crushing defeat. The following year, he resigned and banished to Elba, a small island off the Italian coast. In 1815, he escaped from Elba and returned to France, where he was restored to power. But the other European powers, promptly declaired war, a hundred days after his restoration, he met his final defeat in the Battle of Waterloo. After Waterloo, Napoleon was imprisoned by the British, in the island of St Helena, a small island in the South Atlantic. He died there of cancer, in 1821. Napoleon was obiviously a military genious. But he ended up being a disaster after his crushing defeats in Russia and Leipzig against the Austrians and Prusians. Despite his military disasters, he has virtually trasnsformed France, for what it is today. But why is Napoleon compared to Alexander the Great, as a general, and didn't Alexander the Great , Genghis Khan and Tamerlane remained undefeated generals during there conquest. The conquest of Napoleon is similar to Alexander. Napoleon's short-term infleunce was great as Alexander, but Alexander's long-term infleunce was much greater than Napoleon's. Napoleon is often compared to Adolf Hitler. Nothing in Napoleon's regime is compared to the Nazi consentration camp. Unlike Hitler, Napoleon was rather a opportunanist, where else the conquests of Hitler, where rather of hideous ideology, which included large scale massacres. I think Napoleon and Hitler, have equal infleunce upon the world, and we musn't forget Hitler's short term infleunce was far greater than Napoleon's, but in the long run, I see Napoleon as important as Hitler. Napoleon also had a large, through indirect effect on the history of Latin America. His invasion of Spain, so weakened the Spanish government that for a period of several years it lost effective control of it's colonies in Latin America. It was during then, that the Latin American independence movements commenced. Of all Napoleon's actions however, the one that has perhaps had the most enduring and significant consequences was one that was almost irevelent to his main plans. In 1803, Napoleon sold a vast tract of land to the United States. He realized, that the French possesion in North America were difficult to protect from the British, and besides he was short of cash. The Louisanna Purchase, perhaps the largest peaceful transfer of land in all of history, transformed the United States, as a nation as a near-continental size. It is doughtful wheather the United States wouldn't have been a great power without the Louisanna Purchase. Napoleon, of course wasn't the only one to have played the major role in the Louisanna Purchase, so did the United States government.