Louis XVI originally called the Estates General because he needed its approval to raise taxes, which he hoped would help pay off France's military debts. However, the meeting of the Estates General turned into an airing of other public grievances over food shortages, the excesses of royals and nobles, and the unfair distribution of power among the Estates. The attack on the Bastille was the result of increasing unrest over these issues.

The National Assembly was established in 1789 by members of the Estates General, but a new constitution replaced it with the Convention in 1792. The Convention was then followed by the Committee of Public Safety, led by Maximilien Robespierre, until a five-man governing body called the Directory took control in 1795.

While both the American and French Revolutions established new governments, the American Revolution did so by casting off the government of another country, and the French Revolution did so by replacing the government in its own country several times. Both revolutions had a great deal of popular support, and both were greatly aided by intellectuals who disseminated Enlightenment ideas. Additionally, both revolutions were concerned about inequality in their governments, which was why the American colonists felt it was unfair to be taxed without representation.

Haiti gained its independence from France in 1804, following a slave revolt led by Pierre Toussaint L'Ouverture. Present-day Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela followed suit in 1811, after Simon Bolivar led a rebellion against Spanish rule. Argentina and Chile were liberated several years later in a movement led by Jose de San Martin.

Nationalism was a hugely important movement throughout nineteenth-century Europe, and this growing desire to unite regions with shared cultural identities led to the unification movements in both Germany and Italy; however, Italians found it difficult to define their shared cultural identity, whereas German identity was often rooted in memories of the former Holy Roman Empire. German unification was also a process undertaken largely by one man, Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, while Italy united under King Victor Emmanuel II, Count Camillo Cavour, and national fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi.

In 1861, Alexander II issued the Emancipation Edict, which abolished serfdom and ended centuries of peasants being tied to the land. The edict, however, did little to ease the poverty of former serfs, and Alexander was eventually assassinated by a group of anti-monarchists.

Although all of the answers are among Pedro II's accomplishments and initiatives as the last emperor of Brazil, the abolition of slavery was the most upsetting one to landowners, who feared economic repercussions. The abolition of slavery as an institution is not to be confused with the abolition of the slave trade, which occurred earlier in Pedro II's reign.

This famous image depicts the October March of 1789, also known as the Women's March on Versailles. The march was a protest of food shortages fueled by growing anger at the French monarchy, and it was led largely by working class women. These women can be identified in the image by the plain clothes that they wear, and while one woman on the left does appear to be dressed more extravagantly, she is more likely to be a member of the bourgeoisie than a royal like Marie Antoinette. The October March was a symptom of the same problems that caused other popular uprisings that year, such as the storming of the Bastille and the Great Fear, but neither of those events featured women so prominently. The Tennis Court Oath did not involve women at all, as they were not allowed to be members of the Estates General.

Image in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Image Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Women%27s_March_on_Versailles01.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

Although a weakening China suffered many military defeats during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none were as crippling to its government and global standing as the Opium Wars. Not only did these wars pave the way for foreign powers to divide China into their own spheres of influence, but they also emboldened angry civilians to rise up against their weak government. This trend continued with the Boxer Rebellion at the end of the nineteenth century, which also had disastrous effects.

Most revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were intimately connected to the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement that had recently swept through Europe. Many Enlightenment thinkers believed that man has a natural right to self-governance, which made republicanism attractive, while monarchy and imperialism became increasingly unacceptable. After these revolutions first broke out in America and France, many countries in central and South America were inspired to follow suit.