The Reign of Terror ended with the fall of Robespierre in 1794. His arrest on July 27 and execution on July 28 marked the decisive collapse of the radical political order associated with the Terror.
The Reign of Terror was a period of emergency revolutionary government and widespread political violence in the French Republic. It is commonly dated from 1793 to 1794, though historians disagree about its exact beginning. The Committee of Public Safety directed wartime measures, while the Revolutionary Tribunal prosecuted people accused of treason or counterrevolution.
Robespierre’s overthrow occurred during the Thermidorian Reaction, named for Thermidor, the eleventh month of the French Revolutionary Calendar. Members of the National Convention feared his growing influence and the expansion of revolutionary justice. After his execution, the Convention reduced the power of the Jacobin Club and dismantled many of the institutions that had sustained the Terror.
The year 1794 is therefore the standard quiz answer, even though executions and political repression did not stop instantly on July 28. The fall of Robespierre ended the Terror as a dominant phase of revolutionary government, rather than ending every act of violence connected with the Revolution.