1800s (decade)

The advancements of the previous three decades towards the end of the 18th century had propelled the Industrial Revolution into a global movement, with entire wars fought with the newly developed technologies – creating an impetus to imperialist campaigns across Africa and Asia, as well as the counter-movement on Latin America later on.

As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription.

On 2 December 1805, Napoleon defeated a numerically superior Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz, forcing Austria's withdrawal from the coalition (see Treaty of Pressburg) and dissolving the Holy Roman Empire.

Major engagements between France and Austria, the main participants, unfolded over much of Central Europe from April to July, with very high casualty rates.

Britain, already involved on the European continent in the ongoing Peninsular War, sent another expedition, the Walcheren Campaign, to the Netherlands in order to relieve the Austrians, although this effort had little impact on the outcome of the conflict.

After much campaigning in Bavaria and across the Danube valley, the war ended favorably for the French after the bloody struggle at Wagram in early July, resulting in the Treaty of Schönbrunn .

In 1806, Humphry Davy decomposed potash and soda, employing a voltaic pile of approximately 250 cells, showing that these substances were respectively the oxides of potassium and sodium, which metals previously had been unknown.

Employing a battery of 2,000 elements of a voltaic pile and charcoal enclosed in a vacuum, Davy gave the first public demonstration of the electric arc lamp in 1809.

Fashion in this period in European and European-influenced countries saw the final triumph of undress or informal styles over the brocades, lace, periwig, and powder of the earlier eighteenth century.

Fashionable women's clothing styles were based on the Empire silhouette — dresses were closely fitted to the torso just under the bust, falling loosely below.

Inspired by neoclassical tastes, the short-waisted gowns sported soft, flowing skirts and were often made of white, almost transparent muslin, which was easily washed and draped loosely like the garments on Greek and Roman statues.