Timeline August 1793

Events in August 1793 5

• 1740 – 1793 Adam Philippe de Custine (1740-1793) Died 28 August 1793, aged 53 A French general, Adam Philippe de Custine commanded Revolutionary armies in the Rhineland campaign before suffering setbacks against Prussian and Austrian forces. He was guillotined in Paris after being accused of treasonous incompetence.
• 1793 Yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia Epidemic kills thousands in the US capital A severe outbreak of yellow fever struck Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States, killing roughly five thousand people and prompting a mass exodus of residents including government officials. The epidemic exposed the limits of contemporary medical knowledge about the disease's transmission.
• 1793 Louvre Museum opens to the public Former royal palace becomes a public art museum The revolutionary government opened the Louvre Palace in Paris as a public museum, displaying royal art collections that had been nationalized during the Revolution. It became one of the world's great museums and remains so today.
• 1793 Abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue French commissioner frees enslaved people in the colony French civil commissioner Leger-Felicite Sonthonax proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue amid the Haitian Revolution. The decree was later extended to all French colonies and marked a turning point in the struggle that led to Haitian independence.
• 1793 Siege of Toulon Royalist port city besieged by revolutionary forces Republican forces besieged the Mediterranean port of Toulon after royalist rebels had handed the city and its fleet to British and Spanish forces. A young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte distinguished himself in the siege, which ended with the city's recapture in December.