Ch.17 (Strayer, pp.504-507) Response

This section of the book is about the French Revolution and how it differs from the American Revolution. I was surprised to read about how all these different kinds of people took part in this revolution as they tried to gain more freedom and rights, having been influenced by the American Revolution that had happened before. It seems that this was a particularly violent revolution, though I cannot imagine any revolution happening without some sort of violence being involved. I do not know a lot about revolutions but it was interesting to read that those involved the French Revolution symbolized their want of a new society by making a new calendar starting with year 1 in 172 (a year before the King Louis XVI and the Queen Marie Antoinette were executed), it was their way of starting from scratch. I curious if this whole changing the calendar thing stuck or how legit it was because I have never heard of some one being able to just dub some year as the start of civilization or anything except for in the case of Christianity doing so. I'm curious what France would be like right now if the French Revolution succeeded and Napoleon had not been brought down as well as what happened after the French Revolution ended.