Explain why the French Revolution turned radical and violent between 1792 and 1794, and describe how Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and built an empire on the Revolution's ruins.
In 1792, fearing that other European monarchs would invade to restore Louis XVI's full power, France's new government declared war on Austria and Prussia -- and war radicalized everything. Facing invasion and internal suspicion of traitors, the monarchy was abolished and a Republic declared in September 1792; Louis XVI was tried for treason and executed by guillotine in January 1793. A radical faction led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety then launched the Reign of Terror (1793-1794): under the Law of Suspects, anyone merely suspected of disloyalty to the Revolution could be arrested, and roughly 17,000 people were officially executed, many by guillotine, with thousands more dying in prison or without trial. The irony proved total: in July 1794, Robespierre himself was arrested and guillotined by former allies who feared they were next, a moment historians call the Thermidorian Reaction, which ended the Terror.
The weak, corrupt government that followed, the Directory (1795-1799), could not control France's problems, and a wildly successful young general named Napoleon Bonaparte filled the vacuum. After seizing power in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 1799), Napoleon became First Consul and, in 1804, crowned himself Emperor -- reportedly taking the crown from the Pope's hands to place it on his own head, a calculated statement that his authority came from himself, not the Church. His Napoleonic Code (1804) standardized French law around legal equality for men and protection of property, and versions of it still shape legal systems across Europe and Latin America today. At his empire's height around 1810, Napoleon dominated most of continental Europe, but his 1812 invasion of Russia ended in catastrophe -- cold, starvation, and Russian resistance destroyed his army during the retreat from Moscow. Defeated decisively at Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821.
Mastery looks like: They can explain why war radicalized the Revolution into the Terror, describe the Terror's end, and trace Napoleon's rise from general to self-crowned emperor through at least three specific events.
Common stumbles: Treating the Terror as random bloodshed rather than a specific political mechanism (the Committee of Public Safety, the Law of Suspects) with an identifiable start and end, or assuming Napoleon simply "took over" without seeing the power vacuum that made it possible.