The major turning points of the Revolution are the following:

• July 14, 1789 - The Storming of the Bastille, considered the beginning of the Revolution.
• August 27, 1789 - the issuance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the newly formed National Assembly, and an attempt to establish a limited monarchy.
• January, 1793 - The conviction and condemnation of Louis XVI for Treason.
• Spring, 1793 - the ideological dispute between the Jacobins and Gerondins divided the entire country, and the revolution was in danger. In response to this threat, Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee on Public Safety instituted the Reign of Terror in which thousands were guillotined with the intent of preserving the Revolution. If finally ended with the execution of Robespierre himself.
• October 5, 1795, when the Directory, the latest ruling body, called in Napoleon Bonaparte to put down a royalist uprising. This was the famous "whiff of buckshot."

There were other events along the way, of course, many of great importance; however these were the events which marked the major turning points in the Revolution. It began with the storming of the Bastille and ended with the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte.