1794 ROBESPIERRE OVERTHROWN IN FRANCE:

Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, is overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. As the leading member of the Committee of Public Safety from 1793, Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the Revolution. The day after his arrest, Robespierre and 21 of his followers were guillotined before a cheering mob in the Place de la Révolution in Paris.

Maximilien Robespierre was born in Arras, France, in 1758. He studied law through a scholarship and in 1789 was elected to be a representative of the Arras commoners in the Estates General. After the Third Estate, which represented commoners and the lower clergy, declared itself the National Assembly, Robespierre became a prominent member of the Revolutionary body. He took a radical, democratic stance and was known as "the Incorruptible" for his dedication to civic morality. In April 1790, he presided over the Jacobins, a powerful political club that promoted the ideas of the French Revolution.

He called for King Louis XVI to be put on trial for treason and won many enemies, but the people of Paris consistently came to his defense. In 1791, he excluded himself from the new Legislative Assembly but continued to be politically active as a member of the Jacobin Club. In 1792, he opposed the war proposal of the Girondins--moderate leaders in the Legislative Assembly--and lost some popularity. However, after the people of Paris rose up against the king in August 1792, Robespierre was elected to the insurrectionary Commune of Paris. He then was elected to head the Paris delegation to the new National Convention.

In the National Convention, he emerged as the leader of the Mountain, as the Jacobin faction was known, and opposed the Girondins. In December 1792, he successfully argued in favor of Louis XVI's execution, and in May 1793 he encouraged the people to rise up in insurrection over military defeats and a food shortage. The uprising gave him an opportunity to finally purge the Girondins.

On July 27, 1793, Robespierre was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, which was formed in April to protect France against its enemies, foreign and domestic, and to oversee the government. Under his leadership, the committee came to exercise virtual dictatorial control over the French government. Faced with the threat of civil war and foreign invasion, the Revolutionary government inaugurated the Reign of Terror in September. In less than a year, 300,000 suspected enemies of the Revolution were arrested; at least 10,000 died in prison, and 17,000 were officially executed, many by guillotine in the Place de la Révolution. In the orgy of bloodshed, Robespierre succeeded in purging many of his political opponents.

On June 4, 1794, Robespierre was almost unanimously elected president of the National Convention. Six days later, a law was passed that suspended a suspect's right to public trial and to legal assistance. In just a month, 1,400 enemies of the Revolution were guillotined. The Terror was being escalated just when foreign invasion no longer threatened the republic, and an awkward coalition of the right and the left formed to oppose Robespierre and his followers.

On July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor in the Revolutionary calendar), Robespierre and his allies were placed under arrest by the National Assembly. Robespierre was taken to the Luxembourg prison in Paris, but the warden refused to jail him, and he fled to the Hôtel de Ville. Armed supporters arrived to aid him, but he refused to lead a new insurrection. When he received word that the National Convention had declared him an outlaw, he shot himself in the head but only succeeded in wounding his jaw. Shortly thereafter, troops of the National Convention attacked the Hôtel de Ville and seized Robespierre and his allies. The next evening--July 28--Robespierre and 21 others were guillotined without a trial in the Place de la Révolution. During the next few days, another 82 Robespierre followers were executed. The Reign of Terror was at an end.

In the aftermath of the coup, the Committee of Public Safety lost its authority, the prisons were emptied, and the French Revolution became decidedly less radical. The Directory that followed saw a return to bourgeois values, corruption, and military failure. In 1799, the Directory was overthrown in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte, who wielded dictatorial powers in France as first consul and, after 1804, as French emperor.

Confederate William Lowndes Yancey dies of kidney disease in Montgomery, Alabama. Yancey, whose militant stand on the expansion of slavery contributed dramatically to the growing sectional tensions of the era, epitomized the rise of Southern nationalism in the years before the war. The term "fire-eater" was applied to radical secessionists like Yancey, and their rise significantly altered the debate over slavery.

Yancey's road to secession was an unusual one. Born on a Georgia plantation, his father died when he was young. His mother married a Presbyterian minister from New York, who moved the family there when Yancey was nine. Educated in the North, he moved back to the South and became a staunch Unionist. He lived in South Carolina during the nullification crisis of the 1830s, a political dispute in which South Carolina, led by Vice President John C. Calhoun, asserted states' rights by ignoring a federal tariff. It was the beginning of a debate that eventually led to the war.

Within a few years, the circumstances of Yancey's life dramatically changed his political views. He married a slaveholder and moved to Alabama. In 1838, he killed his wife's uncle in a street fight and served a few months in jail for manslaughter. Yancey suffered financially during the Panic of 1837, and most of his slaves died when a neighbor tried to kill his overseer by poisoning a well on Yancey's plantation. These events—coupled with the rise of his stepfather, whom he hated, to a prominent position as an abolitionist—helped form Yancey's political opinions.

In 1841, Yancey began a political career that led him to Congress by 1844. Known as a fiery orator, his words sparked at least one duel, albeit a bloodless one. Yancey, a Democrat, often lashed out against Whigs and even moderate members of his own party, such as Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas. He vehemently opposed the Compromise of 1850 and became an avowed secessionist. He served only two terms in Congress but was an important figure in the growing crisis of the 1850s. When the war broke out, Yancey headed a diplomatic mission to Great Britain and France to secure recognition of the Confederate States of America. These efforts were unsuccessful.

Later, as a senator from Alabama in the Confederate Congress, Yancey openly clashed with President Jefferson Davis and was often critical of the new Confederate government's encroachment on the power of the states. His sudden death in 1863 silenced one of the strongest voices of states' rights.

1996 Bombing at Centennial Olympic Park

In Atlanta, Georgia, the XXVI Summer Olympiad is disrupted by the explosion of a nail-laden pipe bomb in Centennial Olympic Park. The bombing, which occurred during a free concert, killed a mother who had brought her daughter to hear the rock music and injured more than 100 others, including a Turkish cameraman who suffered a fatal heart attack after the blast. Police were warned of the bombing in advance, but the bomb exploded before the anonymous caller said it would, leading authorities to suspect that the law enforcement officers who descended on the park were indirectly targeted. Within a few days, Richard Jewell, a security guard at the concert, was charged with the crime. However, evidence against him was dubious at best, and in October he was fully cleared of all responsibility in the bombing.

On January 16, 1997, another bomb exploded outside an abortion clinic in suburban Atlanta, blowing a hole in the building's wall. An hour later, while police and ambulance workers were still at the scene, a second blast went off near a large trash bin, injuring seven people. As at Centennial Park, a nail-laden bomb was used and authorities were targeted. Then, only five days later, also in Atlanta, a nail-laden bomb exploded near the patio area of a crowded gay and lesbian nightclub, injuring five people. A second bomb in a backpack was found outside after the first explosion, but police safely detonated it. Federal investigators linked the bombings, but no suspect was arrested.

On January 29, 1998, an abortion clinic was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty police officer and critically wounding a nurse. An automobile reported at the crime scene was later found abandoned near the Georgia state line, and investigators traced it to Eric Robert Rudolph, a 31-year-old carpenter. Although Rudolph was not found, authorities positively identified him as the culprit in the Birmingham and Atlanta bombings, and an extensive manhunt began.

Believed to be hiding in the rugged, mountainous wilderness in western North Carolina where he grew up, FBI and state and local agents have yet to capture Rudolph, who is an experienced woodsman. The FBI has posted a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to his arrest.