Despite the fact that his name has become synonymous with "angry short man," Napoleon Bonaparte was actually of average height for the time period in which he lived.
His contemporaries described him as being 5'2", but the French measured height differently back in the day, so he was actually around 5'5". That made him just "an inch or so below the period’s average adult male height." The popular perception of the diminutive general probably came in part from the successful work of the British cartoonist James Gillray, whose mocking caricatures of a "tiny Napoleon" were so popular that Napoleon himself said that Gillray "did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down.”
His contemporaries described him as being 5'2", but the French measured height differently back in the day, so he was actually around 5'5". That made him just "an inch or so below the period’s average adult male height." The popular perception of the diminutive general probably came in part from the successful work of the British cartoonist James Gillray, whose mocking caricatures of a "tiny Napoleon" were so popular that Napoleon himself said that Gillray "did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down.”