Napoleon was born on 15th August 1769, on the island of Corsica. Look at the map, it is an island situated between France and Italy. Corsica, during the 1700s, was under the rule of a country that doesn’t exist any longer, Republic of Genoa.
Several territories that are now part of Italy and Greece were under the control of this country. One such territory was Corsica, but the Corsicians were fed up with Genoan rule. They were fueled by a burgeoning sense of nationalism and a desire to live in a free country. Pasquale Paoli emerged as a leader in the Corsican struggle for independence, and a young Napoleon embraced Corsican nationalism, inspired by his childhood idol Paoli.
By the 1760s, Corsica found itself embroiled in war, while the Republic of Genoa, burdened by debt and war, decided to literally sell the island of Corsica to France in 1768. This decision caused unrest among Corsican freedom fighters, but there wasn’t much that they could do.
