Invasion of Corsica (1794) the Ligurian Sea, a region of the Mediterranean bordered by Western Spain, Southern France and Northwestern Italy. Control of the island, and in particular the harbour at San Fiorenzo, can allow a naval force to exercise regional dominance over this important waterway. Corsica was for centuries a part of the Republic of Genoa, although by the mid-eighteenth century it was "de facto" independent as the Corsican Republic, led by Pasquale Paoli. Unable to contest Paoli's control of the island, the Genoese sold Corsica to the Kingdom of France in 1768, and a French invasion swiftly captured and annexed the island.
History of Corsica would one day astonish Europe. This was written some seven years before Napoleon was born. The prehistory of Corsica covers the long period from the Upper Paleolithic to the first historical event, the founding of Aléria by the ancient Greeks in 566 BCE. The ancient Greeks, notably Herodotus, called the island Kurnos; the name Corsica is Latin and was in use in the Roman Republic. Why Herodotus used Kyrnos and not some other name remains a mystery, and the phrases of the authors give no clue. The Roman historians, however, believed Corsa or Corsica (rightly or wrongly they interpreted -ica