The victor and the vanquished of Waterloo were the same age: Wellington was born on 1 May 1769, Napoleon on 15 August that same year.

1769 · 1815 · apart: 46 years

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The event

• Battle of Waterloo1815 · Waterloo. On 18 June 1815 Wellington's allied army and Blücher's Prussians defeated Napoleon. The battle ended the Hundred Days and the Napoleonic Wars, while the Congress of Vienna set up a new order in Europe.

18th century · 19th century

More amazing facts

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• 1769 · 1820 Antarctica was first sighted only in 1820, by the Bellingshausen–Lazarev expedition — by then Watt's steam engine was already half a century old.
• 1769 · 1771 The world's first car, legend says, also had the first crash.
• 1770 The Vatican forbade copying Allegri's Miserere, but 14-year-old Mozart wrote it down from memory.
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• 1770 · 1780 The mass-produced toothbrush was invented in prison.

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