A break from the news de jour: Here's what long-range planning is like

The United States wanted to purchase New Orleans from France.

We authorized our delegation to spend x dollars and they went to negotiate.

Napoleon was cash-strapped but that angle of this story has always been over-played. He could have gotten almost the same money just for the port of New Orleans.

Napoleon looked at our offer and said, for only a little bit more I'll throw in the entire Louisiana territory. We hadn't been looking to buy it, but it was too good a deal to pass up. So we went for it.

When Napoleon signed the papers he said to Talleyrand, "I have hereby insured that America will become a great nation."

By selling us the entire Louisiana territory America was sure to expand all the way west without much interference from Europe. And eventually America would be the dominant power in the Atlantic Ocean, not England.

If America and England remained on bad terms (as seemed likely at the time) that would break up England's ability to blockade continental Europe. And with England's ability to keep Europe divided the continent could eventually be unified.

I don't think Napoleon expected this to happen in his lifetime.