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Current period
1790s opens onto 6 lives, 6 place stories, and 1 named historical windows.
Lives in this period
These are the clearest lives to open first when you want a person, not a date label, to lead you into the period.
1790 - Philadelphia
Usefulness, public myth, old age, and the accounting of self.
In Philadelphia, the most practical man of the Revolution reflects on what independence actually required — and what it didn't.
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1793 - Conciergerie, Paris
Scapegoating, mythmaking, and a queen resisting reduction to symbol.
Waiting for the blade in the Conciergerie, a queen dismantles the lie that she was ever in control.
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1794 - Luxembourg Prison, Paris
Under guard in the Luxembourg Prison, a chemist who transformed science waits to learn whether the Revolution will let him live.
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1796 - Tsarskoye Selo
Succession paranoia, political memory, and power defended through paperwork.
With succession turning every drawer into a point of danger, an empress writes what her court was built to conceal.
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1797 - London
Weak from childbirth and aware the fever is winning, the author of the first argument for women's rights writes her last account.
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1799 - Mount Vernon
Retirement, republican virtue, and the afterlife of command.
In his last year at Mount Vernon, the father of a nation admits what the republic asked of him — and what it took.
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Places inside this time
In 1790s, use the same years to move from chronology into cities, courts, islands, and regions that already carry deeper context.
Alive in this timeline around 1790 / story span 1720s-1790
Connected to 1 life including Benjamin Franklin.
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Alive in this timeline around 1793 / story span 1793
Connected to 1 life including Marie Antoinette.
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Named windows
1 windows to step into
Early Modern
1750 to 1825
Private lives inside state collapse, military ambition, and the remaking of legitimacy.
16 lives visible here
15 place stories active in the same years
Enter this periodTime travel
1790 CE to 1799 CE
Time controls
Change the span without losing your route back into the lives and places already visible in this period.
6 place stories are visible in this time window.
Chronology
Move year by year, compare one life with the next, and open a person directly when the route becomes clear.
1790 - Philadelphia
Place story available
Usefulness, public myth, old age, and the accounting of self.
In Philadelphia, the most practical man of the Revolution reflects on what independence actually required — and what it didn't.
Alive in this timeline around 1794 / story span 1794
Connected to 1 life including Antoine Lavoisier.
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1790s across the atlas
1790 - Philadelphia
1793 - Conciergerie, Paris
1794 - Luxembourg Prison, Paris
1796 - Tsarskoye Selo
Decades
1793 - Conciergerie, Paris
Place story available
Scapegoating, mythmaking, and a queen resisting reduction to symbol.
Waiting for the blade in the Conciergerie, a queen dismantles the lie that she was ever in control.
1794 - Luxembourg Prison, Paris
Place story available
Under guard in the Luxembourg Prison, a chemist who transformed science waits to learn whether the Revolution will let him live.
1796 - Tsarskoye Selo
Place story available
Succession paranoia, political memory, and power defended through paperwork.
With succession turning every drawer into a point of danger, an empress writes what her court was built to conceal.
1797 - London
Place story available
Weak from childbirth and aware the fever is winning, the author of the first argument for women's rights writes her last account.
1799 - Mount Vernon
Place story available
Retirement, republican virtue, and the afterlife of command.
In his last year at Mount Vernon, the father of a nation admits what the republic asked of him — and what it took.
A later reforming life taking women's moral seriousness into another public field.
At Ramsgate, where the sea presses against the walls, a prison reformer writes what the committees and charities never saw.
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1928 - London
Another private life unfolding in London, England.
The woman who led the suffragette movement writes what polite history will refuse to include about the fight for the vote.
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1865 - White House, Washington
reform-and-justice
A contrasting life shaped by reform and justice.
In the final winter of the Civil War, a president confronts the distance between saving the Union and saving himself.
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