Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni appears.
| 1788 | A fifth Grimm son, Ferdinand Philipp, is born. The U.S. Constitution is ratified. |
| 1789 | The French Revolution begins. English Romantic poet and artist William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, writ ten from a child’s point of view. |
| 1790 | Ludwig Emil, sixth child of Philipp and Dorothea Grimm, is born. Ludwig will become an artist and an illustrator of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. |
| 1791 | The Grimm family moves to Steinau, Germany, where Phi lipp becomes a district judge. The Grimms prosper in Stei nau; Philipp provides his family with a large house and domestic servants. Another son, Friedrich, is born but dies in infancy. Jacob and Wilhelm are schooled in the strict Reform Calvinist Church. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a leading figure of the German Romantic movement, be comes director of the Weimar Court Theater. In the United States, the Bill of Rights is passed. |
| 1792 | In England, Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the first major feminist document. |
| 1793 | The Grimms’ only daughter, Charlotte (“Lotte”) Amalie, is born. France’s King Louis XVI is executed. |
| 1794 | Another son, Georg Edward, is born to the Grimms but dies in infancy. |
| 1796 | Philipp Wilhelm Grimm dies on January 10, leaving his wife and six children. Jacob, the eldest surviving child, is just eleven. |
| 1798 | Through the influence of Harriet Zimmer, sister of Do rothea Grimm and lady-in-waiting to the princess of Hessia-Kassel, Jacob and Wilhelm begin secondary school at the prestigious Lyzeum in Kassel. The brothers dedicate themselves to their schoolwork; each graduates at the top of his class. In England, William Wordsworth’s collection of poems Lyrical Ballads, a central work in the Romantic movement, is published. |
| 1799 | Italian physicist Alessandro Volta produces the first bat tery as a source of electricity. |
| 1800 | German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schel ling publishes his System des transzendentalen Idealismus (System of Transcendental Idealism), while Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), a novelist and prominent poet, puts out Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night); both publications are major works of German Romanticism. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose philosophy has a profound impact on the German Romantic movement, publishes Bestimmung des Menschen (The Vocation of Man). In the United States, the Li brary of Congress is established. |
| 1801 | Novalis dies. German philosopher Georg Friedrich Wil helm Hegel and Schelling edit the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (Critical Journal of Philosophy). |
| 1802 | Jacob Grimm enters the aristocratic University of Marburg with the intention of studying law. |
| 1803 | Wilhelm follows his brother to Marburg, where he too studies law. While at the university, Jacob and Wilhelm come under the influence of Professor Friedrich Karl von Savigny, the founder of historical jurisprudence. Von Sa vigny teaches that laws are correctly interpreted by tracing their historical and cultural origins. The brothers adapt his methods to the study of linguistics and philology. American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark begin their expedition from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Coast. |
| 1805 | German Romantic writers Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim publish Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic |
| Horn), a collection of folk songs. Jacob spends time in Paris with Professor von Savigny. Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott’s epic, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, is published. |
| 1806 | Prussia declares war on France. Jacob leaves the university to help support his family in Kassel. He takes a post as secretary for the Kassel War Commission while continuing his studies on the side. Inspired by the work of their friend Clemens Brentano, the brothers begin to collect folktales (in German, Märchen). Napoleéon I’s armies oc cupy Kassel and take Berlin. The Holy Roman Empire ends. American philologist and lexicographer Noah Web ster publishes his first dictionary; it is followed in 1812 by his finest work, The American Dictionary of the English Lan guage, containing some 70,000 words. |
| 1807 | Jacob loses his post in the war commission when Kassel becomes part of the kingdom of Westphalia under the authority of Napoleéon I’s younger brother, Jeéroôme Bon aparte. Hegel publishes Phänomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit), an important work of the German Romantic movement. |
| 1808 | Dorothea Grimm dies on May 27, leaving Jacob to care for the family.
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