Napoleon Sails for Egypt

May 19, 1798

Thirty-eight thousand troops and a crowd of savants - mathematicians, botanists, archaeologists - sailed from Toulon on 400 ships. The Directory was happy to have Napoleon occupied far from Paris. He took Malta on the way, beat the Mamluks at the Pyramids, and opened Egypt to modern Europe. Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Aboukir Bay, stranding the army, but the scholarly Description de l'Egypte would reshape Western knowledge of the ancient world.