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Trump got history wrong in interview with NYT

Mr. Trump may have been confusing Napoleon Bonaparte with his nephew, Louis Napoleon or Napoleon III, when he claimed that Napoleon “designed Paris.” In 1853, about 30 years after the first Napoleon died, Napoleon III appointed Georges-Eugène Haussmann to carry out his reconstruction project, envisioned to accommodate rapid population growth and to discourage future revolutions, according to the Museum of the City.

“His one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death,” Mr. Trump continued.

While he identified the correct Napoleon, his version of the 18th-century conqueror’s failed attempt to invade Russia is garbled. Napoleon’s 1812 campaign into Russia lasted about six months, not, as Mr. Trump suggested, one night. And the French emperor did take Moscow in September, before withdrawing a month later as food supplies began to dwindle. Of nearly half a million men under his command, only about 6,000 made it back home and the others died in battle or succumbed to disease or the weather.

Asked what Mr. Trump could have meant by “extracurricular activities,” Adam Zamoyski, the author of “Moscow 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March,” said: “I can’t make head or tail of it. You could argue that all of Napoleon’s activities were ‘extracurricular’! As are Trump’s.”

Read entire article at NYT