France

Fought between 1914 and 1918 across three continents, the First World War killed 20 million people and dismantled four empires, replacing the 19th-century world order with one that no one had wanted or planned.

Between 1347 and 1351, the bubonic plague killed between one third and one half of Europe's entire population, destroying the old social order and inadvertently paving the way for a new world.

Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscure Corsican origins to dominate Europe, winning over 60 pitched battles and remaking the legal and political landscape of the continent before his final defeat in 1815.

Between 1789 and 1799, the French people overthrew the monarchy, executed the king, and experimented with republican government in the most radical political upheaval in modern European history.