Portrait of Eugénie de Montijo

Birthday profile

Eugénie de Montijo

Eugénie de Montijo, French wife of Napoleon III (died 1920)

Born
May 5, 1826
Died
July 11, 1920
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1826

About Eugénie de Montijo

Eugénie de Montijo (French: [øʒeni də mɔ̃tiʁo]; born María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick; 5 May 1826 – 11 July 1920) was Empress of the French from her marriage to Napoleon III on 30 January 1853 until he was overthrown on 4 September 1870. From 28 July to 4 September 1870, she was the de facto head of state of France. Born to prominent Spanish nobility, Eugénie was educated in France, Spain, and England. As Empress, she used her influence to champion "authoritarian and clerical policies"; her involvement in politics earned her much criticism from contemporaries. Napoléon and Eugénie had one child together, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856–1879). After the fall of the Empire, the three lived in exile in England; Eugénie outlived both her husband and son and spent the remainder of her life working to commemorate their memories and the memory of the Second French Empire. Eugénie de Montijo, as she became known in France, was formally educated mostly in Paris, beginning at the fashionable, traditionalist Convent of the Sacré Cœur from 1835 to 1836. Due to her mother's role as a lavish society hostess, Eugénie became acquainted with Queen Isabella II of Spain and the prime minister Ramón Narváez.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Eugénie de Montijo was born

Eugénie de Montijo was born in 1826. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineJohn Adams and Thomas Jefferson both die on July 4
  • Technology milestoneFirst photograph (heliograph) by Nicéphore Niépce
  • World population~1.06B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJohn Quincy Adams
  • U.S. population11.3M

1826 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Eugénie de Montijo's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18262026
Population11.3M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

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Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.