Montmartre falls to the Versailles Army

The Vendôme Column, viewed as a monument to militarism and imperial conquest, was demolished in a public ceremony. Gustave Courbet had earlier proposed moving the monument, but later became associated...

A major explosion at an ammunition works killed and injured workers and nearby residents. Communards suspected sabotage, although the precise cause remained disputed.

The Commune directed that religious symbols and instruction be removed from schools and accelerated the creation of secular education. The policy accompanied efforts to improve education for girls.

Government troops entered through the Porte de Saint-Cloud after discovering that part of the western defences was unguarded. Their entry began the Bloody Week and the final destruction of the...

The Versailles Army occupied western Paris while Communards constructed barricades and organized neighbourhood resistance. The centralized defence rapidly fragmented into local battles.

As government forces advanced, fires destroyed the Hôtel de Ville and other public buildings. Responsibility for individual fires and their military purpose became a major subject of political...

Communard officials executed Archbishop Georges Darboy and several other hostages in La Roquette prison while government forces carried out mass executions of captured Communards.

Several thousand Communards resisted a much larger government force around the Butte-aux-Cailles. Versailles troops eventually took the position and continued eastward.

Charles Delescluze, the Commune’s delegate for war, walked unarmed toward a barricade at the Place du Château-d’Eau and was killed by government fire.

A crowd of guards and civilians killed clergy, gendarmes and other prisoners in the Rue Haxo amid the collapse of Commune authority. Commune members including Eugène Varlin attempted unsuccessfully to...