Paris Timeline

1783 Sep 3 Treaty of Paris
The treaty document was signed at the Hôtel de York – which is now 56 Rue Jacob – by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay (representing the United States) and David Hartley (a memb...
1874 Oct
to 1874 Dec
Sullivan Studies at the École des Beaux-Arts
After six fruitful months with William Le Baron Jenney, Louis Henry Sullivan decided to return to school for theoretical grounding, this time to the acknowledged source of architectural w...
1882 Nikola Tesla begins working for Continental Edison
In 1882 Tesla moved to Paris, to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric equipment brought overseas from Edison's ideas. According to hi...
1889 Mar 31 Eiffel Tower Opens
The Eiffel Tower is an 1889 iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris that has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world....
1896 'Salome' Premieres in Paris
Rehearsals for the play's debut on the London stage began in 1892, but were halted when the Lord Chamberlain's licensor of plays banned Salomé on the basis that it was illegal to depict B...
1898 Dec 10 Treaty of Paris is Signed, Ending the Spanish-American War
American and Spanish delegates met in Paris on October 1, 1898 to produce a treaty that would bring an end to the war after six months of hostilities. The American commission consisted of...
1900 May 14
to 1900 Oct 28
 Games of the II Olympiad held in Paris, France
The 1900 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the II Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1900 in Paris, France. No opening or closing cer...
1900 Nov 30 Oscar Wilde Dies
"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to for..." —Oscar Wilde
1903 Aug 10 Couronnes Disaster - Paris Métro Fire
The first sign of trouble was at 6:53 p.m., when double train 43 completed the climb to Boulevard Barbès station with heavy smoke pouring from one of the motors on its front car, car M202...
1910 T. S. Eliot Attends the Sorbonne
In May 1910 a suspected case of scarlet fever almost prevented Eliot's graduation. By fall, though, he was well enough to undertake a postgraduate year in Paris. He lived at 151 bis rue S...
1922 Feb Ernest Hemingway Meets Ezra Pound
At the end of 1921, Ezra Pound rented a ground-floor apartment at 70 bis Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs (southwest of the Luxembourg Gardens). Hemingway visited Ezra here often, and commented ...
1922 Feb 2 The First Edition of 'Ulysses' is Published in Paris
The court claimed the content of Ulysses to be pornographic based on the characters preoccupation with sex and their colorful language. Soon after the ruling, watching a discouraged James...
1922 Mar Ernest Hemingway Meets James Joyce
Hemingway was quick to see the merit in the work of James Joyce, not always a limpid writer. In a letter to Sherwood Anderson dated March 9, 1922, Hemingway wrote: "Joyce has written a...
1924 May 4
to 1924 Jul 27
 Games of the VIII Olympiad Held in Paris, France
The 1924 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the VIII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1924 in Paris, France. The home city of Pierr...
1925 Apr Ernest Hemingway Meets F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast, he describes the first time he met F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Dingo Bar on the rue Delambre where, as Hemingway describes it, “…a very strange thi...
1927 Jan Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway Are Divorced
Hemingway's marriage to Hadley broke down as he was writing and revising The Sun Also Rises. In the spring of 1926, Hadley became aware of his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, although she h...
1927 Jul 7 'Pomes Penyeach' is Published
Published in 1927, Pomes Penyeach is a collection of 13 poems, a gathering of works written while Joyce was busy working on Ulysses. The collection is so named for its price – one shillin...
1934 'Tropic of Cancer' is Published in Paris
Tropic of Cancer is a novel by Henry Miller, first published in 1934 by Obelisk Press in Paris. Its publication in 1961 in the United States by Grove Press led to an obscenity trial that ...
1944 Aug 25 Liberation of Paris
The French capital had been occupied for four years, and most Americans associated German occupation with a romantic picture of Parisians struggling against German oppression. In reality,...
1962 Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation Opens
The Mémorial de la Déportation is a memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. It is in Paris, France on the si...
1962 Jun 3 Air France Orly Crash
On June 3, 1962, an Air France charter flight from Paris to Atlanta crashed on takeoff from France’s Orly Field. The crash, at the time the worst in aviation history, killed 130 people...
1973 Jan 27 Signing of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam as Part of the Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973, intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam Conflict, ended direct U.S. military involvement and temporarily stopped the fighting bet...
1989 Sep 19 UTA Flight 772 is Bombed
The DC-10 was operating as UTA Flight 772 on the Brazzaville-N'Djamena-Paris route. The aircraft took off from N'Djamena at 13:13 and climbed to a cruising altitude of FL350. At 13:59 an ...
2009 Jun 15 Centennial Paris Air Show Opens on Somber Note Amid Continuing Air France Flight 447 Investigations
The world's largest showcase of civilian and military aircraft and equipment, the Paris air show, has opened at Le Bourget Airport. Some 2,000 exhibitors from 48 countries will be exh...
2009 Jun 18 Protests of Iranian Election Irregularities Intensify in Paris
Several dozen journalists and the press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) staged a protest rally outside the Iranian embassy in Paris on Thursday to demand an end to media restrict...
2010 May 20 Five Paintings Worth 100 Million Euros are Stolen From Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
French police are hunting a thief who stole paintings by Picasso, Matisse and three other artists from a museum in Paris. Officials say the five paintings are worth an estimated one hu...