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The pivotal event of European history in the eighteenth century was the French Revolution. From its outbreak in 1789, the Revolution touched and transformed social values and political systems in France, in Europe, and eventually throughout the world. France's revolutionary regime conquered much of Western Europe with its arms and with its ideology. Though the Revolution was a bloody tragedy, many Europeans and non-Europeans came to see the Revolution as much more than just that. These …

…Italy and Germany. Also influential was the revolutionaries' belief that a nation was not a group of royal subjects but a society of equal citizens. The fact that most European countries are or are becoming parliamentary democracies, along the lines set out by the French Revolution, suggests its enduring influence. The greatest legacy of the French Revolution, however, was the realization that people could change anything that they wanted with political ideas, words and laws.