BC55

Aug 27: Caesar's first British expedition (second in BC54)

BC46

Caesar institutes the Julian calendar

BC44

Mar 15: Caesar assassinated in Rome

AD 43

Roman Conquest of Britain begun by Emperor Claudius – Camulodunum (Colchester) captured and becomes first Roman Base in England

AD 47

Fosse Way built

AD60

Revolt of Boudicca (Boadicea)

c80-85

Campaign of Agricola in southern Scotland

c85

Battle of Mons Graupius, massive defeat of Caledonians by Roman forces

115

Roman Empire reaches its greatest extent under Trajan

122

Beginning of Hadrian's Wall (completed AD126)

c140

Antonine Wall built in central Scotland (completed circa AD143)

180

Beginning of the 'decline of the Roman Empire' (Gibbon) – Defeat of Romans in Caledonia – they retreat behind Hadrian's Wall

207-11

Campaign of Severus in southern Scotland

247

1,000th anniversary of founding of Rome

304

St Alban first Christian martyr in Britain [Anglo-Saxon Chronicles say 286]

321

Sunday declared a statutory holiday by the Christian church

325

Council of Nicaea establishes basic Christian dogma

c350

St Ninian first to preach Christian religion in Scotland, arrives Solway Firth

367

Invasion of northern England by Picts and Scots

406/412

Probable end of Roman military occupation of Britain

418

'The Romans gathered all the gold-hords there were in Britain; some they hid in the earth so that no man might find them, and some they took with them to Gaul' – Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

c400 – c600

Migration and settlement of Angles, Jutes and Saxons

432

St Patrick begins mission to Ireland

449

Beginning of invasions by Jutes, Angles and Saxons – Hengist and Horsa invade

'The Angles were invited here by king Vortigern, and they came to Britain in three longships, landing at Ebbesfleet. [He] gave them territory in the southeast of this land on the condition that they fight the Picts. This they did, and had victory wherever they went. Then they sent to Angel and commanded more aid … they soon sent hither a greater host to help the others. Then came the men of three Germanic tribes: Old Saxons, Angles and Jutes. Of the Jutes come the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight; of the Old Saxons come the East-Saxons, South-Saxons and West-Saxons; of the Angles come the East Anglians, Middle Anglians, Mercians and all Northumbrians. Their war-leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa … first of all they killed and drove away the king's enemies, then later they turned on the king and the British [mid-450s], destroying through fire and the sword's edge.' – Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

467

Chinese observe Halley's comet

c490

British check Anglo-Saxon advance at seige of Mount Badon (site unknown)

c500

Irish "Scots" arrived in western Scotland

537

Death of King Arthur [Note: He is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles]

c541

Bubonic plague devastates Europe

c550

Anglian settlement in south-east, Scotland

551

Birth of Confucius

563

Columba arrives in Iona and founds the Celtic Christian Church (c565)

570

Birth of Mohammed (Muhammad)

577

Anglo-Saxon victory at Deorham marks resumption of their advance in England

597

Death of Columba, later sanctified

597/8

St Augustine lands in Kent – converts King Ethelbert – introduces Roman Christian Church to England – later becomes first Archbishop of Canterbury

c.600 for some centuries

The period of the 'Heptarchy': the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, East Anglia and Kent – the 'top king' at any one time was referred to 'Bretwalda' (overlord of the Britons)

601

Pope Gregory calls Ethelbert 'rex Anglorum'

604

St Paul's Cathedral in London founded

Death of St Augustine, and pope Gregory I

617

Edwin becomes king of Northumbria (to 633) – founds Edinburgh – [He overcame all Britain save Kent alone – Anglo-Saxon Chronicles]

622

Muhammad's flight from Mecca marks the start of the Muslim era

c650

Sutton Hoo ship-burial

663

Synod of Whitby: Roman Christianity triumphs over Celtic

664

Roman Christianity established in Northumbria

673

Birth of the Venerable Bede, first English historian (d. 735)

First synod of clergy in England (at Hertford)

685-7

Cuthbert served as Bishop of Lindisfarne

c698

Lindisfarne Gospels

710

Roman Christianity established in Pictland

722

First written version of Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf

731

Bede's Ecclesiastical History

747

King Offa first divided a pound of silver into 240 silver pennies

800

Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III

c800

Book of Kells

802

Norsemen plunder Iona

827

Egbert King of Wessex and Mercia effectively first king of England (d. 839)

838

Norse establish permanent base at Dublin

844

Kenneth I MacAlpin, king of Scots, becomes King of Picts – start of Scottish kingdom

865-874

Danish army conquers north-eastern third of England

871

Alfred (the Great) crowned king of England

872

Curfew (couvre feu) introduced at Oxford by King Alfred to reduce fire risks

878

Norse fail in attempt to conquer Wessex

880

Treaty of Wedmore: England divided between Alfred the Great of Wessex (the south and west) and the 'Danelaw'(the north and east)

889

Donald II, first King of Picts & Scots (d. in battle 900)

891

Beginning of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle marks revival of learning in England

899

Death of King Alfred the Great

917-921

Edward of Wessex conquers southern half of Danelaw

937

Athelstan of Wessex defeats Scots, north Welsh and Norse at Brunanburh

c960

Edinburgh held by King of Alba

980

Vikings renew assault on England

1002

Sveyn of Denmark devastates England: King Aethelred (the Unready) pays him 24,000 pounds of silver to stop

1004

Vikings explore the North American coast

1007

King Aethelred pays Sveyn another 36,000 pounds of silver

1010

London Bridge torn down by Vikings with grappling irons – (Olaf II Haraldsson, later St Olaf, took part)

1012

King Aethelred pays Sveyn another 48,000 pounds of silver; but next year Sveyn pushes him off the throne

1014

Brian Boru leads the Irish to victory over the Norse at Clontarf

1016

Canute (Knut, son of Sveyn) becomes king of Denmark, Norway and England (d. 1035)

1018

Battle of Carham: Malcolm defeats the Northumbrians adding Lothian to Scotland

c1030

Guido of Arezzo introduces first practical form of musical notation, enabling melodies to be sung on sight

1034

Strathclyde annexed by King of Scots becomes part of Scottish Kingdom

1035

Death of Canute: the Danish empire splits up

1040

Macbeth murders Duncan and takes the throne of Scotland (d. 1057)

Lady Godiva, wife of earl of Mercia, rides naked through Coventry as a protest against taxes – [Now why couldn't Shakespeare write about that instead?]

1042

Edward the Confessor King of England (d. 1066)

First recorded use of moveable type, in China

1052

Building of Westminster Abbey starts (consecrated 1065?, rebuilt 1250?)

1066

Jan 6: Edward the Confessor dies – Harold II reigned for 9 months

Sep 25: Battle of Stamford Bridge: Harold II defeats Norwegian invasion

Oct 14: Invasion of England by Duke William of Normandy – Battle of Hastings

Dec 25 William crowned King of England at Winchester

1069

King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland marries Margaret (later St Margaret)

1072

King Malcolm III of Scotland submitted to William the Conqueror

c1070

Re-construction of Canterbury Cathedral begins: The Saxon cathedral burned in 1067. Lanfranc, first Norman Archbishop, restored and enlarged its buildings between 1067 and 1077. A new Quire was consecrated in 1130 but burned in 1174, four years after Becket's murder. That was rebuilt by 1184, but the nave wasn't finished until 1405. [others say completed 1495]

1071

Norman conquest of England complete

1079

Construction of Winchester Cathedral begins (consecrated in 1093 but not completed until 1404.)

1081

Building of Tower of London starts [others say 1067]

1086

Completion of Domesday Book

1096

First crusade begins

1098

Expedition of Magnus Barelegs to Scottish coasts

12th & 13th centuries

Climate: A medieval warm period called the 'Little Optimum'

c1100

First record of football in England

1102 (1107?)

Synod of Westminster under St Anselm forbids clergy to marry

1110

Introduction in England of Pipe Rolls, recording exchequer payments

1119

Military order of the Knights Templar founded

1120s

First references in Scotland to Burghs and Sheriffs

c1130

Great age of abbey building in England: Tintern (1131), Rievaulx (1131), Fountains (1132)

1135

Stephen seizes the throne of England

1138

Battle of The Standard

c1140

Transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture in Europe (freeing walls from load-bearing functions, thus allowing larger windows); Linguistically, also regarded as the start of the Middle English period (until c.1500)

1153

Henry Plantagenet inherits the throne of England (becoming Henry II) – he already has Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, and is now the most powerful man in Europe

1154

Dec 4: Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV) becomes only English pope (d. 1 Sep 1159)

1163

Danegeld tax abolished

1166

Establishment of trial by jury

1170

Dec 29: Murder of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral

1172

Pope decrees that Henry II of England is feudal lord of Ireland

1175

Treaty of Falaise signed – William the Lyon surrenders Scottish crown to King Henry II of England

1176

London Bridge construction in stone started (from tax on wool) – completed 1209

1189

Richard I 'Lionheart' becomes king of England (d. 1199) – acknowledges the independence of Scotland

Sep 1: Legal Memory dates from accession of Richard I

1190

Opening of the Third Crusade

'Early English' Gothic period in English architecture (till about 1280)

1192

Richard I held for ransom on his way back from the Crusade

1199

Richard I dies having spent most of his reign abroad – succeeded by his brother John

1215

Jun 15: Magna Carta signed at Runnymede by King John

First Lord Mayor's Show in London

1220

Start of building York Minster: Archbishop Walter de Gray started its construction (with the transept) in 1220, working from the design of the Norman cathedral of 1070. Its towers were finally completed in 1470. [Some say started 1291, completed 1345]

Salisbury Cathedral: started (replacing the Norman cathedral at Old Sarum) by Bishop Poore in 1220, consecrated in 1258, and its great spire finished in 1334

1222

Introduction of a poll tax in England

King Alexander II of Scotland conquers Argyll

1228

First recorded mention of the Royal Mint

1231

Cambridge University organised and granted Royal Charter

1235

Statute of Merton — authorised manorial lords to enclose portions of commons and wastes provided that sufficiant pasture remained for his tenants

1237

Treaty of York signed

1247

Foundation of Bedlam (Bethlehem Hospital), London, by Simon Fitzmary

1248

Charter granted to Oxford University by Henry III

c1250

Royal Proclamations by Henry III are first government documents issued in English

1263

Battle of Largs, Ayrshire – King Alexander defeats Norwegian invaders under King Haakon

1264

First recorded reference to Justice of the Peace in England

Battle of Lewes: Henry III captured by Simon de Montfort

1265

Start of English Parliament?

Battle of Evesham: Simon de Montfort killed

1266

Western Isles acquired by Scotland

1272

Eighth (and last) crusade

1277

Edward I embarks on the conquest of Wales

1280

'Decorated' Gothic period in English architecture (till about 1370)

Climate: 1280–1311 peak of the medieval warm period

1282

Dec 10: Llewellyn, last native Prince of Wales, killed

1283

Annexation of Wales to England

1285

Statute of Westminster — among other things, authorised manorial lords to enclose commons and wastes where the common riights belonged to tenants from other manors

1290

Death of the 'maid of Norway,' heiress to the Scottish crown

Jews expelled from England

Spectacles introduced in Italy

1291-2

Competition for the Scottish Crown between some eleven "Competitors" (including John Baliol, John Comyn and Robert Bruce the elder) all claiming the right to succeed

1291

York Minster: see 1220

1292

King Edward I awards Scottish crown to John Baliol ('Toon Tabard')

1295

Signing of the "Auld Alliance" between Scotland and France – one of the world's oldest mutual defence treaties

1296

Annexation of Scotland by England – Scotland's Coronation Stone the "Stone of Destiny" or "Stone of Scone" was removed to Westminster Abbey by the English King Edward I, temporarily 'returned' to Scotland in 1950, and permanently returned in 1996

John Baliol dethroned by Edward I

Beginning of uprising led by William Wallace (the Guardian of Scotland)

1297

Battle of Stirling Bridge, defeat of English Army

1298

Battle of Falkirk, Edward I defeats William Wallace – early use of the long bow by the English

c1300

Earliest western reference to manufacture of gunpowder

1301

Feb 7: Son of Edward I created first Prince of Wales

1305

Trial of William Wallace in London,

execution at Smithfield

1306

Robert the Bruce crowned King Robert I of Scots

1312

Knights Templars suppressed in France

1313–1321

Climate: Sequence of cold and wet summers – harvests ruined

1314

Jun 24: Battle of Bannockburn – Scots under Robert the Bruce routed the English led by Edward II – resulted in Scottish independence

Edward II banned football in London

Great European famine

c1320

Invention of escapement clocks, and first practical guns

1320

Declaration of Arbroath; a statement of Scottish independence

1326

First Scottish Parliament (at Cambuskenneth)

1327

Deposition and regicide of King Edward II of England

1328

Treaty of Northampton, formalised peace between England and Scotland

1329

Death of Robert the Bruce; succeeded by King David II of Scots

1332

Climatic catastrophe in eastern Asia – 7 million people drowned – black rats driven west (eventually causing Black Death in Europe)

1338

Edward III asserts his claim to the French throne – 'Hundred Years War' begins (to 1453)

1346

Battle of Neville's Cross; English capture King David II

Aug 26: Battle of Crecy (Crécy)

1348

Jun 24: Order of the Garter founded by King Edward III of England – motto 'Honi soit qui mal y pense'

1349

Black Death reaches England (entered Europe in 1346) – this was the first return of plague to Europe for almost 400 years, but it reappeared more than once during the rest of the century – some estimate that where it struck, up to a quarter of the population perished

1351

Statute of Labourers – attempt to regulate wages and prices at 1340 levels following labour shortages caused by the Black Death

1356

Sep 19: Battle of Poitiers: Black Prince (son of Edward III) captures the French king, John the Good

1360

Edward II and John the Good (still in captivity) make peace – but it only lasted for 9 years

1362

English becomes official language in English Parliament and Law Courts

Quarter Sessions established by statute

William Langland Vision of Piers Ploughman

1366

Statues of Kilkenny belatedly forbid intermarriage of English and Irish – Gaelic culture unsuccessfully suppressed

1369

Hundred Years War restarts

1370

'Perpendicular' Gothic period in English architecture (till about 1550) – great East Window in Gloucester first example

1371

Accession of Robert II, the first Stewart king of Scots

1372

Naval battle off La Rochelle: Castilians defeat the English fleet – tide begins to turn against the English in Aquitaine

1375

Truce in the Hundred Years War – England lost most of her possessions in France

1381

Jun 15: Wat Tyler killed at Smithfield, London during Peasants' Revolt in protest at poll tax of 1380

1382

First translation of the Bible into English, by John Wycliffe

May 21: Great earthquake in Kent

1383

Regular series of wills starts in Prerogative Court of Canterbury

1388

Battle of Otterburn, Northumberland (Chevy Chase)

1387

Chaucer (d. 1400) begins writing The Canterbury Tales

1392

Wells Cathedral clock

1397

Dick Whittington (d. 1423) first becomes Lord Mayor of London

1399

Deposition of King Richard II; Henry IV establishes Lancastrian dynasty

1400

Oct 25: Geoffrey Chaucer dies in London

Rebellion of Owen Glendower of Wales against Henry IV

Average life expectancy had dropped to 38 years (had been 48 years in 1300)

c.1400

This is the date at which the 'great vowel shift' (shortening of vowel sounds) in the English language is regarded as starting

1412

Foundation of the University of St Andrews

1415

Oct 25 (St Crispin's Day): Battle of Agincourt

1422

Infant Henry VI (9 months old) on throne of England

1431

May 30: Death of Joan of Arc

1432–1438

Climate: Britain snowbound for 6 of these 7 winters

1437

Assassination of King James I of Scots at Perth

1451

University of Glasgow founded

1453

Gutenberg prints the bible, using movable type [some say 1454 or 1455]

End of Hundred Years' War (Battle of Castillon, Jul 17)

Aug: Battle of Stamford Bridge first in Wars of the Roses (1455–87)

1455

Fall of the Black Douglases in Scotland

1457

First recorded mention of golf in Scotland

1460

Aug 3: King James II of Scots killed by an exploding cannon at Kelso

1461

Henry VI flees to Scotland; Edward, Duke of York, crowned as Edward IV

1465

Irish living near English settlements made to take English surnames

1468

Orkney and Shetland Islands acquired from Norway by Scotland

1472

St Andrews made a bishopric

1476

Caxton sets up press in Westminster

1477

Edward IV bans cricket

1480

Spanish Inquisition begins

1483

Murder of the princes in the Tower; their uncle Richard III becomes king

1484

Introduction of bail for defendants in legal courts

English first used for parliamentary statutes

1485

Aug 22: Battle of Bosworth Field; Richard III killed – beginning of Tudors (Henry VII)

Formation of the Yeomen of the Guard

1492

Christopher Columbus discovers the West Indies

Moors driven from Grenada

1495

Foundation of the University of Aberdeen (as King's College)

1497

Parish registers instituted in Spain by Cardinal Ximenes

Cabot reaches North America

1499

Nov 16: Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne, executed

1503

Marriage of King James IV of Scots and Margaret Tudor

1503-5

Leonardo da Vinci painted Mona Lisa

1505-6

Royal College of Surgeons founded in Edinburgh

1507

First printing press in Scotland set up in Edinburgh by Andrew Myllar

Suggestion put forward that the New World be named America in honour of Amerigo Vespucci

1509

Naturalisation papers start in England

Henry VIII becomes king of England (to 1547)

1512

Admiralty founded in London

The "Auld Alliance" treaty with France – all Scottish citizens became French and vice versa

1513

Sep 9: Battle of Flodden, defeat of Scottish Army – death of King James IV of Scots

Machiavelli writes The Prince

1514

Recording of Testaments (wills) begins in Scotland

1516

Thomas More writes Utopia

1517

Oct 31: Martin Luther fixes his 95 theses on church door at Wittenburg – regarded as start of the Reformation

1520

Cortes conquers Mexico

1529

Diet of Speyer: origin of the word Protestant

1532

Foundation of the Court of Session in Scotland

1534

Reformation of the Catholic Church in England church (Henry VIII)

1535

Sir Thomas More executed

1536

Dissolution of monasteries starts in England

1538

English and Welsh parish registers start

Henry VIII issues English Bible

1540

Statute of Wills allows freehold land to be bequeathed

Feb 9: First recorded horse racing event in Britain, at Chester

1541

Henry VIII proclaimed king (rather than feudal lord) of Ireland

1542

The Rout of Solway Moss and the death of King James V of Scots

1544-5

Mary of Guise Regent of Scotland

Henry's VIII's "Rough Wooing" of the Scottish Borders

1547

English replaced Latin in church services in England and Wales

Battle of Pinkie

The injunction to keep parish register reiterated

Vagrants Act passed (able-bodied tramps can be detained as slaves)

Death of Henry VIII (Edward VI to 1553)

Ivan the Terrible takes title 'Tsar of all the Russias'

1549

Jun 9: First Book of Common Prayer sanctioned by English Parliament

Wedding ring finger changed from right to left hand

First Act of Uniformity in England made Catholic Mass illegal

English Parliament declares enclosures legal

1550–1700

Climate: Referred to as the 'Little Ice Age' – severe gales became more frequent

1550

Walloon Protestants arrive as refugees from the Low Countries

1551

Scotland: General Provincial Council orders each parish to keep a register of baptisms and banns of marriage

1554-1558

Brief Catholic restoration under Queen Mary Tudor

1555

Michel Nostradamus publishes his prophecies

1556

Cranmer burnt at the stake

1557

The First Covenant signed in Scotland (foundation of the Presbyterian Church)

1558

Scottish parish registers start

Chancery Proceedings Indexes begin

French take Calais, last English possession in France

1558-1603

Reign of Elizabeth I – Policy of Plantation begins

System of Counties adopted

1559

John Knox returns from Continent – strengthens case for Presbyterianism in Scotland

Tobacco introduced to Europe

1560

Establishment of Protestantism in Scotland – commissary courts thrown into confusion – some records lost

1561

Spire of St Paul's, highest in England, destroyed by fire

1562

African slave trade starts

1563

Papal recusants heavily fined for non-attendance at Church

The Test Act excludes Roman Catholics from governmental office

1565

Marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Darnley

1566

Murder of Riccio in Holyrood House

1567

Murder of Darnley outside Holyrood House in an explosion – marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and Bothwell

Earliest date in the French Protestant and Walloon registers

1568

Battle of Langside – Mary's flight to England and her imprisonment by Queen Elizabeth I

1569

Elizabeth I approved Sunday sports

1571

Beginning of penal legislation against Catholics in England

Opening of the Royal Exchange, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham

1571-1572

Presbyterianism introduced into England by Thomas Cartwright

1572

Slaughter of Huguenots in Paris (massacre of St Bartholomew)

1574

Colonial State Papers published – continued to 1738

1577

James Burbage opens first theatre in London

1578

Earliest Quaker registers begin

1579

Act of Uniformity in matters of religion enforced

1580

Colonisation of Ireland

Congregational movement founded by Robert Browne about this time

1581

English Levant Company founded

1582

Gregorian calendar introduced to replace Julian calendar in some countries: Spain and Portugal, France, Low Countries, part of Italy, Denmark. Pope Gregory suppressed 10 days by altering 5 Oct to 15 Oct, thus making the Spring equinox fall on 21 March 1583. Dates relating to the Julian calendar were then referred to as 'Old Style', and those relating to the Gregorian calendar as 'New Style'. See 1600 and 1752 for its adoption in Britain.

1583

Foundation of Cambridge University Press by Thomas Thomas

University of Edinburgh founded

1585

Foundation of Oxford University Press

Shakespeare started seriously to write about this time

1586

Camden Britannia, first topographical survey of England

1587

Feb 8: Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Fotheringay Castle, near Peterborough

Aug 11: Raleigh's second expedition to New World lands in North Carolina – first child born in the New World of English parents, Virginia Dare (Aug 18)

Introduction of potatoes to England

1588

Jul 29: Defeat of Spanish Armada (had set sail from Lisbon May 20)

Invention of shorthand by Dr Timothy Bright

1591

Trinity College, Dublin, founded

1592

A Congregational (or Independent) Church formed in London

Scotland: Presbyterian Church formally established – all ministers equal – no bishops – secular commissaries appointed by the Crown

1593

British statute mile established by law

1594

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, leads Irish rebellion against English rule

1597

Poor Law Act for erection of parish workhouses for the Poor – Poor Rate collection allowed

1598

Bishop's transcripts of English and Welsh parish registers start [some say 1597]

Edict of Nantes gives Huguenots toleration in France (but see 1685)

1600

Memoirs of Officers of the Royal Navy begin

Scotland adopts New Year beginning 1st January (previously 25th March) - see 1752

1601

Great English Poor Law Act passed

First use of fruit juice as a preventative for scurvy by James Lancaster

East India Company founded

1603

Mar 24: Death of Elizabeth I: union of Scottish and English crowns – under King James VI of Scots and I of England (d. 1625)

1604

Robert Cawdrey A Table Alphabeticall – first English dictionary

1605

Gunpowder plot at Westminster (Guy Fawkes, etc)

1606

Apr 12: Adoption of Union Jack as the flag of "Great Britain"

The London Company chartered to colonise Virginia

Episcopacy established in Scotland (against wishes of the Scots)

1607

Flight of the Earls – leading Ulster families go into exile

1608

First use of telescope by Galileo

1610

James VI & I established the Episcopal Church in Scotland – Prebyterians persecuted and many of their records lost

1611

Plantation of Ulster with English and Scottish colonists

Authorised (King James) Version of Bible in England

May 22: James VI & I created the title of baronet

1616

Apr 23: Death of Shakespeare

Ben Jonson becomes first Poet Laureate

1617

Register of Sasines (land leases) established in Scotland – record of the transfer of land and property

1620

Dec 21 (Dec 16 old style): The Mayflower reaches America – founds Plymouth, New England

Manufacture of coke patented by Dud Dudley

1621

Chimneys to be made of brick and to be four and a half feet above the roof

Shakespeare's First Folio published

1622

First English newspaper appeared Weekly News

1624

Monopoly Act in England: patents protected

Edmund Gunter introduces the surveyor's chain (measurement of length)

1625

The size of bricks standardised in England around this time

Death of King James VI & I

1625-1649

Carolean Age

1629

Parliament dissolved by King Charles I – did not meet for another 11 years

1630-1750

Baroque Period (Art & Antiques)

1630-1750

Renaissance Period (Art & Antiques)

1633

Galileo summoned by Inquisition for publishing in favour of Copernican theory

1635

Letter Office of England & Scotland started

Flintlock small arms invented around this time (replaces matchlock)

L'Academie Française founded in France by Richelieu

1636

Hackney Carriages in use by now in London

1637

Scottish Prayer Book published

'Tulipomania' in Holland, leads to classic market collapse

1638

Charles regarded protests against the prayerbook as treason – forced Scots to choose between their church and the King – a "Covenant", swearing to resist these changes to the death, was signed in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh and was accepted by hundreds of thousands of Scots (revival of Presbyterian Church)

1639

Act of Toleration in England established religious toleration

1640

Charles I forced to recall Parliament due to Scottish invasion

1641

Charles I's policies cause insurrection in Ulster and Civil War in England

Oct 23: 50,000 Irish killed in an uprising in Ulster

Charles I and the English Parliament acknowledge the Prebyterian Church in Scotland

1642

Aug 22: Charles I raises his standard at Nottingham – First Civil War in England (to 1649) – first engagement at Edgehill (23 Oct) – Scottish Covenanters side with the English rebels who take power – the Earl of Montrose sided with King Charles, strife spilled into Scotland

The Civil War interrupted the keeping of parish registers

English theatres closed by Puritans (till 1660)

1643

Solemn League and Covenant signed in Scotland

1644

Earliest Independent (Congregational) registers

Earliest Presbyterian registers

1644-5

Montrose's Venture (Montrose executed in 1650)

1645

Battle of Naseby: Parliament's New Model Army crushes the Royalist forces

Battle of Philiphaugh in Scotland

Inquisitions Post Mortem end

Scotland: Each county and burgh ordered to raise and maintain a number of foot soldiers, according to population, to serve as militia – population of Scotland estimated at 420,000

Plague made its last appearance in Scotland

1646

Jun 20: Royalists sign articles of surrender at Oxford

1647

Earliest Baptist registers survive from this year

1648

Society of Friends (Quakers) founded by George Fox

First practical thermometers made

1649

Jan 30: King Charles I executed (see 1660 for Regicides)

May 19: Commonwealth declared

Dec 20: Theatres banned by Cromwell

Cromwell's Irish campaign starts

King Charles II proclaimed King of Scots and England in Scotland

1649-1660

Commonwealth Period – Oliver Cromwell

1650

Term 'Quaker' first used for Society of Friends

Coffee brought to England about this time

1651-1652

The second English Civil War

Sep 3: Battle of Worcester – see Oak-apple Day 1664

Scottish prisoners transported to the English settlements in America

1653

Commonwealth registers start

Commonwealth changed into Cromwell's Protectorate

Under the Act of Settlement Cromwell's opponents stripped of land (in Ireland?)

Isaak Walton The Compleat Angler

1653-1660

Provincial probate courts abolished – probates granted only in London

1657

Post Office established by Act of Parliament [others say 1660]

A few Jews permitted to settle in England

1658

Sep 3: Death of Oliver Cromwell

Huygens pendulum clock

1658-1660

Richard Cromwell (son of Oliver) Lord Protector

1659

Feb 6: date of first known cheque to be drawn

Start of national meteorological Temperature records in the UK

1660s

Quaker-Scottish colony was established in East New Jersey

1660–

Restoration Period

1660

Jan 1: Samuel Pepys starts his diary

May 29: Restoration of British monarchy (Charles II) – 'Oak Apple Day' – theatres reopened

Commonwealth registers ended, Parish Registers resumed

Provincial Probate Courts re-established

Oct 17: Ten Regicides are executed at Charing Cross or Tyburn: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scrope, John Carew, Thomas Scot and Gregory Clement, who had signed the death warrant; the preacher Hugh Peters; Francis Hacker and Daniel Axter, who commanded the soldiers at the trial and the execution of the king; and John Cook the solicitor who directed the prosecution [Encyclopedia Britannica]

Clarendon code restricts Puritans' religious freedom

Dec 8: First actress plays in London (Margaret Hughes as Desdemona)

Composition of light discovered by Newton

Honourable East India Company founded by British

First British in Japan

Scotland adopts Gregorian calendar

1661

Persecution of Non-conformists in England

Restoration of Episcopacy in Scotland

Board of Trade founded in London

Hand-struck postage stamps first used

Corporation Act prevents non-Anglicans from holding municipal office

1662

Hearth Tax

– until 1689 (1690 in Scotland)

Poor Relief Act "Act of Settlement" – gave JPs the power to return any wandering poor to the parish of origin

Act of Uniformity – About 2,000 vicars and rectors driven from their parishes as nonconformists (Presbyterians and Independents) – Persecution of all non-conformists – Presbyterianism dis-established – Episcopalian Church of England restored

Tea introduced to Britain

1663

Earliest Roman Catholic registers

1664

May 29: Oak Apple Day – the birthday of Charles II and the day when he entered London at the Restoration; commanded by Act of Parliament in 1664 to be observed as a day of thanksgiving. A special service (expunged in 1859) was inserted in the Book of Common Prayer and people wore sprigs of oak with gilded oak-apples on that day. It commemorates Charles II's concealment with Major Careless in the 'Royal Oak' at Boscobel, near Shifnal, Shropshire, after his defeat at Worcester on 3 Sept 1651.

Aug 27: Nieuw Amsterdam becomes New York as 300 English soldiers under Col. Mathias Nicolls take the town from the Dutch under orders from Charles II. The town is renamed after the King's brother James, Duke of York

1665

Great Plague of London (July-October) kills over 60,000

Five-mile Act restricts non-conformist ministers in Britain

1666

Sep 2-6: Great Fire of London, after a drought beginning 27 June

Use of semaphore signalling pioneered by Lord Worcester

Act of Parliament – burials to be in woollen

Newton formulated Laws of Gravity

1666-1689

Considerable religious unrest on Scotland (The Covenanters) – Covenanters Rising at St John's Town of Dalry

1667

John Milton Paradise Lost

1668

British East India Company obtains control of Bombay

Newton constructs reflecting telescope

1669

Earliest Lutheran registers survive from this year

1670

Earliest Synagogue registers – Bevis Marks

Dryden appointed Poet Laureate

1671

May 9: Thomas Blood caught stealing the Crown Jewels

1672

High Court of Justiciary established in Scotland

War with Holland (to 1674) – British Army increased to 10,000 men

1673

First Test Act deprives British Catholics and Non-conformists of Public Office

1674

Nov 8: John Milton dies in London

1675

Beginning of Whig party under Shaftsbury

Aug 10: Building of Royal Greenwich Observatory started

Rebuilding of St Paul's started by Wren (completed 1710)

1677

Lee's "Collection of Names of Merchants in London" published

1678

Extension of Test Act to peers

1679

May 27: Habeas Corpus Act becomes law in England – (later repealed from time to time)

Tories first so named

Battle of Bothwell Brig in Scotland

Burial in Woollen more strictly enforced

1680

William Dockwra(y) begins his London Penny Post

Dodo becomes extinct in Mauritius through over-hunting

1680-1770

Chinoiserie Period (Art & Antiques)

1681

Second Test Act (against non-conformists) passed by Westminster Parliament

Oil lighting first used in London streets

1682

Pennsylvania founded by William Penn

Library of Advocates founded in Edinburgh – later National Library of Scotland

Halley observes the comet which bears his name

1683

Jun 6: Ashmolean Museum opened at Oxford – first museum in Britain

Climate: Coldest 'Frost fair' in London

Wild boar become extinct in Britain

1684

Presbyterian settlement in Stuart's Town in South Carolina

Huguenot registers begin in London

1685

Earl of Argyll's Invasion of Scotland

James the Second (1685-1689, died 1701) – Monmouth rebellion and battle of Sedgemoor – British Army raised to 20,000 men

Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes – 320 executed, 800 transported

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes – drove thousands of Protestants (Huguenots) from France – many settled in England

1686

Release of all prisoners held for their religious beliefs

1687

Newton Principia Mathematica – written in Latin

1688

Feb: Edward Lloyd's Coffee House – later became Lloyd's of London

Nov: The Glorious Revolution: James II abdicates – William of Orange lands in England – William of Hanover and Mary, daughter of James II, jointly take the throne – (only William, however, has regal power)

British Army raised to 40,000

Bill of Rights limits the powers of the monarchy over parliament

Hearth Tax abolished

Mutiny Act

1689

Deposed James VII & II flees to Ireland – defeated at the Battle of the Boyne (1 Jul 1690)

Siege of Londonderry

Earliest Royal Dutch Chapel registers

Toleration Act for Protestant non-conformists

Battle of Killiecrankie in Scotland

Devonport naval dockyard established

1690

Great Synagogue founded

Presbyterianism finally established in Scotland

Battle of the Boyne

1691

Earliest date in known German Lutheran registers

1692

The massacre of Glencoe – Clan Campbell side with the King and murder members of Clan McDonald [1691?]

1692

French intention to invade England came to naught

1693–1700

Climate: Oat harvest failed repeatedly in Scotland – widespread starvation

1694

National Debt came into effect in England

Bank of England founded by William Paterson (a Scot)

Mary II death leaves William III as sole ruler

Triennial Act, new Parliamentary elections every three years

1694-1699

Scotland: Poll Tax imposed on all over sixteen, except the destitute and insane

1695

Freedom of Press in England

Bank of Scotland founded

Act of Parliament imposes a fine on all who fail to inform the parish minister of the birth of a child (repealed 1706, but see 1783)

Start of "Dissenters" lists in parish registers – children born but not christened in the parish church – some were named "Papist" and others "Protestants"

1696

Act of Parliament establishes Workhouses

Education Act passed by Scottish Parliament

Window Tax (replaced Hearth Tax; increased in 1747; abolished 1851 when it was replaced by House Duty)

1697

Dec 2: Official opening of St Paul's Cathedral

1698

Invention of steam engine by Capt Thomas Savery

Darien Expedition: a disastrous attempt to establish a Scots settlement in Panama

Duties (taxes) on entries in parish registers – repealed after five years

1700

Population in England and Scotland approx 7.5 million

1701

Act of Settlement bars Catholics from the British throne

1702-1714

Queen Anne Period (Art & Antiques)

1702

Mar 8: Anne Stuart becomes Queen

Mar 11: First English daily newspaper The Daily Courant (till 1735)

War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713)

1703

Repeal of Duties on entries in Parish Registers

Dec 7–8: Climate: Most violent storms of the millennium cause vast damage across southern England – about a third of Britain's merchant fleet lost, and Eddystone lighthouse destroyed

1704

Battle of Blenheim

Penal Code enacted – Catholics barred from voting, education and the military

Newton Optics, his theories of light and colour – written in English

1705

First workable steam pumping engine devised by Thomas Newcomen (some say 1711)

Isaac Newton knighted

1706

First evening newspaper The Evening Post issued in London

1707

Jan 1: Union with Scotland – Scots agree to send 16 peers and 45 MPs to English Parliament in return for full trading privileges – Scottish Parliament meets for the last time in March

May 1: English and Scottish Parliaments united by an Act of the English Parliament – The Kingdom of Great Britain established – largest free-trade area in Europe at the time

Last use of veto by a British sovereign

1708

First Jacobite rising in Scotland

Earliest Artillery Muster Rolls

1709

First Copyright Act passed

Bad harvests throughout Europe – bread riots in Britain

1710

Tax on Apprentice Indentures

1711

Incorporation of South Sea Company, in London

1712

Imposition of Soap Tax (abolished 1853)

Last trial for witchcraft in England (Jane Wenham)

Toleration Act passed – first relief to non-Anglicans

Patronage Act – patronage of ministers restored

1713

Treaty of Utrecht concludes the War of the Spanish Succession

By this year there are some 3,000 coffee houses in London

1714

Aug 1: Queen Anne Stuart dies – George I Hanover becomes king (1714-1727)

Chancery Proceedings filed under Six Clerks

Schism Act, prevents Dissenters from being schoolmasters in England

Landholders forced to take the Oath of Allegiance and renounce Roman Catholicism

Quarter Sessions Records from this date often mention Protestant dissenters and Roman Catholic recusants

Handel Water Music

1715

Riot Act passed

Second Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, under the Old Pretender ('The Fifteen')

1716

The Septennial Act of Britain leads to greater electoral corruption – general elections now to be held once every 7 years instead of every 3 (until 1911)

Climate: Thames frozen so solid that a spring tide lifted the ice bodily 13ft without interrupting the frost fair

1717

First Masonic Lodge opens in London

Value of the golden guinea fixed at 21 shillings

1719

Third abortive Jacobite rising

Defoe Robinson Crusoe

1720

South Sea Bubble, a stock-market crash on Exchange Alley – government assumes control of National Debt

Manufacturing towns start to increase in population – rise of new wealth

Wallpaper becomes fashionable in England

1721

Robert Walpole (Whig) becomes first Prime Minister (to 1742)

Bailey's Northern Directory

1722

Last trial for witchcraft in Scotland

Knatchbull's Act, poor laws

1723

Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate

The Waltham Black Acts add 50 capital offences to the penal code – people could be sentenced to death for theft and poaching

The Workhouse Act or Test – to get relief, a poor person has to enter Workhouse

1724

Rapid growth of gin drinking in England

Longman's founded (Britain's oldest publishing house)

1725-1726

Treaty of Hanover: France, Prussia, England v. Spain, Austria

1726

First circulating library opened in Edinburgh

Invention of the chronometer by John Harrison

Swift Gulliver's Travels

1727

Board of Manufacturers established in Scotland

Jun 11: George I dies – George II Hanover becomes king

1729

Methodists begin at Oxford

Bach St Matthew Passion

1730

Irish famine

1730-1750

Rococo Period (Art & Antiques)

1731

Invention of seed drill by Jethro Tull [others say 1701]

Invention of sextant by John Hadley

1732

Earliest Cavalry and Infantry Muster Rolls

Covent Garden Opera House opens

1733

Excise crisis: Sir Robert Walpole wanted to add excise tax to tobacco and wine – Pulteney and Bolingbroke oppose the excise tax

Law forbidding the use of Latin in parish registers generally obeyed – some continued in Latin for a few years

John Kay invents the flying shuttle, revolutionised the weaving industry

1734

Kent's Directory

1737

Licensing Act restricts the number of London theatres and subects plays to censorship of the Lord Chamberlain (till 1950s)

1738

Earliest Calvinistic Methodist registers

John Wesley has his conversion experience

1739

Apr 7: Dick Turpin, highwayman, hanged at York

Wesley and Whitefield commence great Methodist revival

1741

Benjamin Ingham founded the Moravian Methodists or Inghamites – Earliest Moravian registers

Earliest Scotch Church registers

Handel The Messiah (first performed in Dublin 1742)

1742

England goes to war with Spain – incited by William Pitt the Elder (Earl of Chatham) for the sake of trade

1743

Jun 16: Battle of Dettingen – last time a British sovereign (George II) led troops in battle

1744

Church of Scotland split over taking of Burgess' Oath – Burghers and Anti-Burghers

First Methodist Conference

Tune God Save the King makes its appearance

1745

Jacobite rebellion in Scotland ('The Forty-five')

Aug: Bonnie Prince Charlie (The Young Pretender) lands in the western Highlands – raises support among Episcopalian and Catholic clans – The Pretender's army invades Perth, Edinburgh, and England as far as Derby

1746

Apr 16: Battle of Culloden – last battle fought in Britain – 5,000 Highlanders routed by the Duke of Cumberland and 9,000 loyalists Scots – Young Pretender Charles flees to Continent, ending Jacobite hopes forever – the wearing of the kilt prohibited

1747

Abolition of Heritable Jurisdictions in Scotland

Act for Pacification of the Highlands

1748-1756

Countess of Huntington's (Calvinistic) Methodist Connexion founded

1750-1770

Gothic Revival Period (Art & Antiques)

1750-1805

Neo-Classical Period (Art & Antiques)

1751

March: Chesterfield's Act passed – royal assent to the bill was given on 22 May 1751 – decision to adopt Gregorian Calendar in 1752.

Gin Act passed

1752

Sep 3: Julian Calendar dropped and Gregorian Calendar adopted in England and Scotland, making this Sep 14 – "Give us back our 11 days!"

Year standardised to end Dec 31 (previously Mar 24), making 1752 a very short year. [Scotland had adopted this in 1600, and some other countries in Europe as early as 1582]

Benjamin Franklin invents a lightning conductor

1753

Earliest Inghamite registers

Private collection of Sir Hans Sloane forms the basis of the Brtish Museum

1754

Hardwicke Act (1753): Banns to be called, and Printed Marriage Register forms to be used – Quakers & Jews exempt

In the General Election, the Cow Inn at Haslemere, Surrey caused a national scandal by subdividing the freehold to create eight votes instead of one

First British troops not belonging to the East India Company despatched to India

First printed Annual Army Lists

1755

Publication of Dictionary of the English Language by Dr Samuel Johnson

Period of canal construction began in Britain (till 1827)

Earthquake destroys Lisbon – 30,000 dead

1756

The Seven Years War with France (Pitt's trade war) begins

1757

Mar 14: Admiral Byng shot at Portsmouth for failing to relieve Minorca – or as the French put it: "Les anglais tuent de temps à temps un amiral pour encourager les autres"

India: The Nawab of Bengal tries to expel the British, but is defeated at the battle of Plassy – the East India Company forces are led by Robert Clive

Black Hole of Calcutta – 146 Britons imprisoned, most die

The foundation laid for the Empire of India

1758

India stops being merely a commercial venture – England begins dominating it politically – The East India Company retains its monopoly although it ceased to trade

1759

Jan 15: British Museum opens to the public in London

Mar: First predicted return of Halley's comet

Sep 13: Gen James Woolfe killed at Quebec

Wesley builds 356 Methodist chapels

1760

Oct 25: George II dies – George III Hanover, his grandson, becomes king

The date conventionally marks the start of the so-called "first Industrial Revolution"

Carron Iron Works in operation in Scotland

May 5: First use of hangman's drop – last nobleman to be executed (Laurence, Earl Ferrers) at Tyburn

Beginning of intense Inclosure Acts in England

1762

Earliest Unitarian registers

France surrenders Canada and Florida

Cigars introduced into Britain from Cuba

Robert Lowth Short Introduction to English Grammar

1763

Treaty of Paris – gives back to France everything Pitt fought to obtain – (Newfoundland [fishing], Guadaloupe and Martininque [sugar], Dakar [gum]) – but English displaces French as the international language

1764

Lloyd's Register of shipping first prepared

Practice of numbering houses introduced to London

James Hargeaves invents the Spinning Jenny (but destroyed 1768)

Mozart produces his first symphony at age eight

1765

Stamp Act passed – imposed a tax on publications and legal documents in the American colonies

The potato becomes the most popular food in Europe

1766

Start of 'composite' national records on Rainfall in the UK

1767

First iron railroads built for mines by John Wilkinson

Newcomen's steam pumping engine perfected by James Watt

1768

The first edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" published in Edinburgh by William Smellie

1769

Sep 6: David Garrick organises first Shakespeare festival at Stratford-upon-Avon

Arkwright invents water frame (textile production)

1770

Apr 28: James Cook discovers New South Wales

Clyde Trust created to convert the River Clyde, then an insignificant river, into a major thoroughfare for maritime communications

1771

Right to report Parliamentary debates established in England

1772

May 14: Judge Mansfield rules that there is no legal basis for slavery in England

First Navy Lists published

Morning Post first published (until 1937)

1773-1858

The East India Company governs Hindustan

1773

Dec 16: Boston Tea Party

Waltz becomes fashionable in Vienna

1774

First recorded cricket match (some say 1719, Londoners v Kentish Men)

1775

Apr 19: Battle of Lexington: first action in American War of Independence (1775-1783) – Irish unrest

1776

Jul 4: American Declaration of Independence

Somerset House in London becomes the repository of records of population

1779

Crompton's mule invented (textile production)

First iron bridge built, over the Severn by John Wilkinson

First Spinning Mills operational in Scotland

Sep 23: Naval engagement between Britain and USA off Flamborough Head

1780

May 4: First Derby run at Epsom

Jun 2–8: The Gordon Riots – Parliament passes a Roman Catholic relief measure – for days, London is at the mercy of a mob and destruction is widespread

Earliest Wesleyan registers

Male Servants Tax

The English Reform Movement – until now, only landowners and tenants (freeholders with 40 shillings per year or more) allowed to vote, and in open poll books

Circular saw and Fountain pen invented

About this time the word 'Quiz' entered the language, said to have been invented as a wager by Mr Daly, a Dublin theatre manager

1782

Gilbert's Act establishes outdoor poor relief – the way of life of the poor beginning to alter due to industrialisation – New factories in rapidly expanding towns required a workforce that would adjust to new work patterns

James Watt patents his steam engine

1783

Duty on Parish Register entries (3d per entry – repealed 1794)

Montgolfier brothers launch first hot-air balloon

Jul: Climate: hottest month on record until 1983

Sep 3: Treaty of Versailles (England/U.S.)

Blake Poetical Sketches

1784

Pitt's India Act – the Crown (as opposed to officers of the East India Company) has power to guide Indian politics

Wesley breaks with the Church of England

First edition of The Times (called The Daily Universal Register for 3 years)

Aug 2: First mail coaches in England (4pm Bristol/8am London)

First golf club founded at St Andrews

Invention of threshing machine by Andrew Meikle

1785

Sunday School Society founded to educate poor children (by 1851, enrols more than 2 million)

1786

Mozart Marriage of Figaro

1787

Earliest known Swedenborgian (Church of the New Jerusalem or Jerusalemite) registers

MCC established at Thomas Lord's ground

1788

Jan 26: First convicts (and free settlers) arrive in New South Wales

First steamboat demonstrated in Scotland [but see 1802]

Law passed requiring that chimney sweepers be a minimum of 8 years old (not enforced)

First slave carrying act, the Dolben Act of 1788, regulates the slave trade – stipulates more humane conditions on slave ships

King George III's mental illness occasions the Regency Crisis – Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox attack ministry of William Pitt – trying to obtain full regal powers for the Prince of Wales

Gibbon completes Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1789

Jul 14: The French Revolution begins – storming of the Bastille

Publication of Gilbert White's 'Natural History of Selborne'

1790

Forth and Clyde Canal opened in Scotland

1791

Sugar prices rise steeply

John Bell, printer, abandons the "long s" (the "s" that looks like an "f")

Establishment of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain

Dec 4: First publication of The Observer – oldest Sunday newspaper

1792

Repression in Britain (restrictions on freedom of the press) – Fox gets Libel Act through Parliament, requiring a jury and not a judge to determine libel

Boyle's Street Directory published

Oct 1: Introduction of Money Orders in Britain

Coal-gas lighting invented by William Murdock, an Ayrshire Scot

Dec 1: King's Proclamation drawing out the British militia

1793

Feb 11: England declares war on France (1793-1802)

Execution of Louis XVI – Reign of Terror starts in France

Apr 15: £5 notes first issued by the Bank of England

Jun 26: Gilbert White, naturalist, dies at Selborne, Hampshire

1794

Abolition of Parish Register duties

Battle of Glorious First of June

Whitney patents the cotton gin

Oct 6: The prosecutor for Britain, Lord Justice Eyre, charges reformers with High Treason – he argued that, since reform of parliament would lead to revolution and revolution to executing the King, the desire for reform endangered the King's life and was therefore treasonous

Lindley Murray English Grammar

1795

The Famine Year

Foundation of the Orange Order

Speenhamland Act proclaims that the Parish is responsible for bringing up the labourer's wage to subsistence level – towards the end of the eighteenth century, the number of poor and unemployed increased dramatically – price increases during the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) far outstripped wage rises – many small farmers were bankrupted by the move towards enclosures and became landless labourers – their wages were often pitifully low

Pitt and Grenville introduce "The Gagging Acts" or "Two Bills" (the Seditious Meetings and Treasonable Practices Bills) – outlawed the mass meeting and the political lecture

Consumption of lime juice made compulsory in Royal Navy

France adopts the metric system

1796

May 14: Dr Edward Jenner gave first vaccination for smallpox in England

Holden's Triennial Directory published

Pitt's "Reign of Terror": More treason trials – leading radicals emigrate

1797

England in Crisis, Bank of England suspends cash payments

Feb 26: First £1 note issued by Bank of England

Apr-Jun: Mutinies in the British Navy at Spithead and Nore

Tax on newspapers (including cheap, topical journals) increased to repress radical publications

1798

Feb-Oct: The Irish Rebellion; 100,000 peasants revolt; approximately 25,000 die – Irish Parliament abolished

First planned human experiment with vaccination, to test theories of Edward Jenner

Malthus Essay on Population

1799

Jan 9: Pitt brings in 10% income tax, as a wartime financial measure

Jul 12: 'Combination Laws' in Britain against political associations and combinations

Foundation of Royal Military College Sandhurst by the Duke of York

Foundation of the Royal Institution of Great Britain

Post Office New Annual Directory

Rosetta Stone discovered in Egypt, made possible the deciphering of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

Perfect mammoth discovered preserved in ice in Siberia

1800

Jul 2: Parliamentary union of Great Britain and Ireland

Electric light first produced by Sir Humphrey Davy

Use of high pressure steam pioneered by Richard Trevithick

Earliest Bible Christian registers

Royal College of Surgeons founded

Herschel discovers infra-red light

Volta makes first electrical battery

British trade accounts for about 27% of world trade

1801

Union Jack official British flag

Jun 29 (GENUKI says Mar 10th?): First census puts the population of England and Wales at 9,168,000 – population of Britain nearly 11 million (75% rural)

Grand Union Canal opens in England

Surrey iron railway, on which horse-drawn trucks carry coal and farm produce

Elgin Marbles brought from Athens to London

1802

Mar 27: Treaty of Amiens signed by Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands – the "Peace of Amiens," as it was known, brought a temporary peace of 14 months during the Napoleonic Wars – one of its most important cultural effects was that travel and correspondence across the English Channel became possible again

Charlotte Dundas on Clyde, first practical steamship, built by William Symington

First British Factory Act

William Cobbett begins his weekly Political Register

Regular mail service started between England and India

1803

Invention of paper-making machine (Foudrinier brothers)

Peace of Amiens ends on 12 May – resumption of war with France – The Napoleonic Wars (1803-18l5)

William Cobbett began unofficial publication of Parliamentary reports (taken over by Hansard report in 1811)

First publication of Debrett's Peerage by John Debrett

Poaching made a Capital offence in England if capture resisted

Early locomotive constructed by Richard Trevithick

First public railway opens (Wandsworth to Croydon)

Semaphore signalling perfected by Admiral Popham

Commissioners for Highland Roads and Bridges created in Scotland; Thomas Telford begins construction

Louisiana Purchase: Napolean sells French possessions in America to United States

1804

Richard Trevithick runs his railway engine on the Penydarren Railway in Wales

Code Napoleon adopted in France

Dec 12: Spain declares war on Britain

Blake Jerusalem (later set to music by Parry)

1805

Oct 21: Admiral Nelson's victory at Trafalgar

London docks opened

1806

Earliest Primitive Methodist registers

Napoleon attempts European economic blockade of Britain

Dartmoor Prison opened (built by French prisoners)

1807

Mar 25: Parliament passes Act prohibiting slavery and the importation of slaves from 1808 – but does not prohibit colonial slavery

Jul 13: 'Hot Wednesday' – temperature of 101°F in the shade recorded in London

Gas lighting in London streets

Beethoven Fifth Symphony

1808

Peninsular War (1808-1814)

Foudrinier brothers set up first paper-making machine in England (at St Neots)

Beginning of 'Luddite' troubles in England (see 1811)

1809

Birth of Charles Darwin

Gay-Lussac: Law of Volumes of Gases

1810

Bible Christians denomination formed by schism in Wesleyan Methodists

John McAdam begins road construction in England, giving his name to the process of road metalling (see 1845)

1811

Feb 5: Prince of Wales (future George IV) made Regent after George III deemed insane

Nov: Luddite uprisings (machine breaking) in the Midlands against weaving frames started – went on until 1815 – groups of workmen rebelled against the increased mechanisation of textile production by destroying the new machinery – government fears revolutionary conspiracy – damaging property or taking Luddite oaths become capital offences

Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility

1812

Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, assassinated – shot as he entered the House of Commons by a bankrupt Liverpool broker, John Bellingham, who was subsequently hanged

Jun 18: Start of American "War of 1812" (to 1814) against England and Canada

Oct-Dec: Napoleon retreats from Moscow with catastrophic losses

Comet steamship launched in Scotland, operated on the River Clyde

1813

'Policy for the Improvement of the Highlands' approved by British Parliament

Ireland: First recorded "12th of July" sectarian riots in Belfast

Rose's Act (1812) established a printed format for baptism & burial registers

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

1814

"Year of the Burning" in Sutherland and Ross

Act of Burial in Woollen repealed

First Pigot's Commercial Directory printed

Jan 1: Invasion of France by Allies

Apr 6: Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba

Nov 29: The Times first printed by a 'mechanical apparatus' (at 1,100 sheets per hour)

Sugar prices reach record height s

1815

Jun 18: The Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon defeated and exiled to St. Helena

Corn Bill passed with enormous benefit to landlords

Trial by Jury established in Scotland

Davy develops the safety lamp for miners

Nash Brighton Pavilion

1816

Economic depression - rise in wheat prices

Income tax abolished

Excise tax payable on paper production (start of papermaking Mill numbers) – until 1861

Climate: the 'year without a summer' – followed a volcanic eruption in Indonesia

Cobbett's Register selling 40-60,000 copies per week

Large scale emigration to North America

Trans-Atlantic packet service begins

1817

Johnstone's London Directory printed

March of the Manchester Blanketeers; Habeas Corpus suspended

Constable Flatford Mill

1818

Manchester cotton spinners' strike

1819

May: Savannah first steamship to cross Atlantic, reaching Liverpool 20 June 1819 (26 days)

Aug 16: Peterloo Massacre at Manchester – a large, orderly group of 60,000 meets at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester – demand Parliamentary Reform – mounted troops charge on the meeting, killing and maiming many people

Dec: Six Acts passed against radical political Unions – prohibits assemblies similar to St. Peter's Fields and imposes press censorship

Britain returns to gold standard

Singapore founded by Sir Stamford Raffles

Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn

1820

Jan 29: Accession of George IV, previously Prince Regent

Cato Street Conspiracy – plot to assissinate British cabinet

Aug 17: Trial of Queen Caroline to prove her infidelities so George IV can divorce her – George tries to secure a Bill of Pains and Penalties against her – Caroline is virtually acquitted because bill passed by such a small majority of Lords

Cobbett's Rural Rides begin to appear in his Political Register (to 1830)

Abolition of the Spanish Inquisition

1821

May 5: Napoleon Bonaparte dies on St Helena

Faraday Principles of electro-magnetic rotation

Constable The Hay Wain

Populations: France 30.4M, German States 26M, Britain 20.8M, Italian States 18M, Austria 12M, the USA 9.6M

1822

Caledonian canal opened

Augustin Fresnel perfects lenses for lighthouses

Schubert Unfinished Symphony

1823

New laws concerning marriage by licence

Scottish testaments prior to 1823 transferred to S.R.O.

Peel begins penal reforms – death penalty abolished for over 100 crimes

Rugby Football 'invented' at Rugby School

Rubberised waterproof material produced by MacIntosh

Monroe Doctrine: President James Monroe warns European powers not to interfere in the American continent

1824

Combination Acts repealed (Trades Unions allowed)

RSPCA established

Carnot Puissance motrice du feu

Beethoven Ninth Symphony

1825

Horse-drawn buses in London [but see 1829]

Stockton to Darlington Railway opens

Hobhouse makes amendments to Acts to protect Child Labour in cotton factories

Publication of Pepys Diary

1826

Scotland's first commercial railway was opened, Edinburgh to Dalkeith

White's first Commercial Directory – Hull

University College, London established

Royal Zoological Society established in London

Telford's Menai Straits Bridge completed

Ampere Electrodynamics

Mendelsohn Midsummer Night's Dream, overture

1827

Hallam Constitutional History of England (one of the first historians to use original documents in his research)

Ohm Ohm's Law (physics)

1828

Apr 28: Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts – had kept non-Anglicans (Catholics and Dissenters) from holding public office and deprived them of other rights

O'Connell barred from the House of Commons as a Roman Catholic

Noah Webster American Dictionary of the English Language

1829

Apr 4: Catholic Emancipation Act restores civil liberties to Roman Catholics

Earliest Irvingite registers

First two omnibuses (pulled by three horses) introduced by George Schillibeer [but see 1825]

London Metropolitan police force formed, nicknamed Bobbies after Sir Robert Peel

George Stephenson's Rocket wins the Rainhill trials (it was the only one to complete the trial!)

First Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race

Lucifer matches first manufactured

Louis Braille invents his sytem of finger-reading for the blind

Rossini William Tell, opera

1830

Jun 26: George IV dies – his brother, William IV, accedes to the throne

July: Revolution in France, fall of Charles X and the Bourbons – Louis Philippe (the Citizen King) on the throne

Uprisings and agitation across Europe: the Netherlands are split into Holland and Belgium

Sep 15: George Stephenson's Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened by the Duke of Wellington – first mail carried by rail, and first death on the railway as William Huskisson, a leading politician, is run over!

Agricultural 'Swing' Riots in southern England, repressed with many transportations

Royal Geographical Society established in London

1830-1880

Eclectic Period (Art & Antiques)

1831

First Reform Bill introduced by Lord George Russell

A list of all parish registers dating prior to 1813 compiled

British Association for the Advancement of Science founded

Faraday demonstrates electro-magnetic induction

Darwin sails on HMS Beagle to survey coral formations

1832

Jun 7: Reform Bill passed – Representation of the People Act – dramatic effects for grossly underrepresented places like Scotland (the number of Scottish people allowed to vote increased from 4,000 to 65,000 out of 2.5 million people) – changed voting from an aristocratic privilege to a middle class right, but by later standards not much was accomplished – approximately doubled the electorate to about 800,000 voters out of a total population in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales of around 24 million (1831 census), and increasing by 1 million a year

Electoral Registers introduced

Electric telegraph invented by Morse

Tennyson Lady of Shalott

1833

Factory Act forbids employment of children below age of 9

Education Grant Act – grants to voluntary education societies in Britain

1834

Slavery abolished in British possessions

Poor Law amendment, tightening up relief

Mar 18: 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' transported (to Australia) for Trades Union activities

Dec 23: Hansom Cab patented by Joseph Hansom

Babbage invents forerunner of the computer

1835

Christmas becomes a national holiday

Earliest Universalist registers

Municipal Corporations Act – major changes in England and Wales

Word 'socialism' first used

First surviving photograph taken by William Fox Talbot

First railway boom period starts in Britain – construction of Great Western Railway

Jun 18: William Cobbett dies

Darwin studies the Galapagos Islands

1836

First Potato famine in Ireland

Economic downturn that lasts until 1842

Tithe Commutation Act – tithe maps created as a by-product over the next 15 years or so

Newspaper tax reduced from 4 pence to one penny

1837

Mar 14: Wheatstone & Cooke send first British telegraph message

Jun 20: William IV dies – accession of Queen Victoria (to 1901)

Jul 1: Compulsory registration of Births, Marriages & Deaths in England & Wales – Registration Districts were formed covering several parishes; initially they had the same boundaries as the Poor Law boundaries set up in 1834

Jul 20: Euston Railway station opens – first in London

Pitman introduces his shorthand system

Dickens Pickwick Papers

1838

Chartists in Britain publish People's Charter demanding popular involvement in politics – huge demonstrations (estimated 100.000 Glasgow, 200,000 Birmingham, 300,000 West Yorkshire)

First ocean steamers to the U.S. – SS Great Western 14½ days; SS Sirius 18 days

SS Archimedes launched – first successful screw-driven ship

1838-1849

The Chartist Movement – a working-class movement for the extension of the franchise – 6-point charter: universal suffrage, secret ballot, annual elections, payment of Members, no property qualification for MPs, equal electoral districts

1839

First Opium War between Britain and China (to 1842)

Bicycle invented

Samuel Cunard establishes his Cunard Steamship Co.

First: Grand National, Henley Regatta, Royal Agricultural Show

1840

Jan 10: Uniform Penny Postage introduced nationally

Rowland Hill also introduces envelopes

Feb 6: Treaty of Waitangi signed – Maori chiefs in New Zealand recognise British sovereignty in return for tribes being guaranteed possession of their lands

Last convicts landed in NSW (some say 1842 or 1849)

Chimney Sweeps Act in Britain

Population Act relating to taking of censuses in Britain

Britain has 24% of steam tonnage, and 24% of world trade

'Can-Can' becomes popular in France

1841

Feb 10: Penny Red replaces Penny Black postage stamp

June 6: First full census in Britain in which all names were recorded

Population: Britain 18.5M, USA 17M, Ireland 8M

Whitworth standard screw threads proposed

First issue of Punch

1842

Mail steamship to India

Civil Registration in Channel Islands started

Second Chartist Petition presented to Parliament

Income Tax reintroduced in britain

Government report 'The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population'

Depression: 60% of Bolton cotton mill workers and 36% of Bolton ironworkers out of work

British Mines Act outlawing women and girls in the mines, and supervising boy labour

British massacred in Khyber Pass

End of Opium War – Britain gains Hong Kong

Tennyson Poems establishes his fame

Doppler Effect stated

Turner Steamer in Snowstorm

1843

First Christmas card in England

Brunel's 'Great Britain' launched

Disruption of the Church of Scotland – 474 ministers signed the Deed of Demission and formed the Free Church of Scotland (the "Wee Free")

Factory safety regulations enacted in Britain

First public telegraph line, from Paddington to Slough

Skiing becomes a sport

Joule defines mathematical equivalent of heat (ergs/calorie)

Wagner Flying Dutchman

Tennyson Morte d'Arthur

1844

Outdoor Relief Prohibition Order – parish relief received only in a workhouse

Companies Act in Britain – companies must register

Bank Charter Act, to regulate money supply in relation to gold in Britain

Railways Act – Gladstone's concept of the 'Parliamentary Train' brought rail travel to the masses

First Morse message transmitted in the USA (Baltimore to Washington)

Karl Marx and Engels begin their collaboration

Dumas The Three Musketeers

Polka introduced to Britain

1845

Excise tax on glass production repealed

'The Hungry Forties' – Potato famine in Ireland (to 1848) – about 2.5M Irish emigrate

Temporary repeal of the Corn Laws

Kelly's Directories

Tarmac laid for first time (in Nottingham)

First voyage of 'Great Britain' – to America

Royal Naval Biographical Dictionary published

1846

An anaesthetic used for the first time in England

Edward Lear First Book of Nonsense

1847

United Succession becomes the United Presbyterian Church

Ten Hours Act shortens factory work day to ten hours for women and children

European crop failure

US Mormons make Salt Lake City their centre

1848

General revolutionary movement throughout the Continent ('Year of Revolution')

Rotary press first introduced

First Public Health Act, establishes the Board of Health

Third Chartist Petition: mass arrests and failure of the movement

California gold rush

Lord Kelvin determines the temperature of absolute zero

Marx and Engels The Communist Manifesto

JS Mill Principles of Political Economy

Macaulay History of England

1849

Civil Registration of Births in Isle of Man started

Florin (2 shilling coin) introduced as the first step to decimalisation – which finally occurred in 1971!

Dickens David Copperfield

1850

Telegraph cable Dover to Calais [others say 1851]

Britain has 39.5% of world merchant shipping tonnage

Tennyson succeeds Wordsworth as Poet Laureate

Bunsen burner designed

1851

Mar 30: Second full British Census – improvements in data compared with the first

May 1: Great exhibition of the works of industry of all nations ("Crystal Palace" exhibition) opened in Hyde Park

Window Tax replaced by House Duty

Photography is popularised by introduction of "wet collodion" process

Singer produces first practical sewing machine (in USA)

Gold discovered in Australia

Verdi Rigoletto

1852

Victoria and Albert Museum opens in South Kensington, London

Manchester has its first Free Library

Land Survey of Britain completed

First voyage of 'Great Britain' to Australia

Tasmania ceases to be a convict settlement

US Express Co., Wells Fargo established in USA

Roget's Thesaurus

1853

Gladstone's first budget: wide range of duties abolished, and death duties introduced

Vaccination against smallpox made compulsory in Britain

'The big stink' – smell of the River Thames forced Parliament to stop work

Dickens A Christmas Carol

1854

Sep 14: Allied armies land in Crimea

Cigarettes introduced into Britain

1855

Jan 1: Registration of births, marriages & deaths made compulsory in Scotland

First London pillar boxes

London sewers modernised after fourth major outbreak of cholera

Florence Nightingale introduces hygiene into military hospitals in Crimea

Cellulose nitrate, first synthetic plastic material, invented by Alexander Parkes

Livingstone finds the Victoria Falls

Trollope The Warden

Longfellow The Song of Hiawatha

1856

End of Crimean War

Discovery of Neanderthal skull

Bessemer's converter revolutionises steel industry

Hughes Tom Brown's Schhodays

1857

Transatlantic cable starts to be laid (see 1866)

London postal districts introduced

European financial crisis

1857-8

Indian Mutiny

1858

Jan: Legally proved Wills start to be entered into an index (Eng & W) – taken out of ecclesiastical jurisdiction

Jan 31: 'Great Eastern' launched

East India Company dissolved

Royal Opera House opens in Covent Garden, London

Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld

1859

Darwin publishes Origin of Species

Peaceful picketing legalised in Britain

First American oil well drilled (in Pennsylvania)

1860

Garibaldi's 'Red Shirts' conquer Sicily and Naples

Second Maori War in New Zealand (to 1870)

Royal Navy adopts ironclads

1861

American Civil War begins

Apr 7: Third full British Census

Dec 14: Prince Albert dies

First horse-drawn trams in London

Emancipation of serfs in Russia

Populations: Russia 76M, USA 32M, Italy 25M , Britain 23M

Mrs Beeton Book of Household Management

1862

Lincoln issues first legal US paper money (Greenbacks)

Bismark becomes first minister in Prussia

Gatling patents his machine gun

Foucault measures the speed of light

Victor Hugo Les Miserables

1863

Football Association founded

London's first Underground Railway opens

Opening of state institution for criminally insane at Broadmoor, England

Manufacture (by Wilbrand) of TNT

Kingsley The Water Babies

1864

Civil Registration in Ireland starts

Civil Registration of marriages in Isle of Man starts

Red Cross established

1865

End of American Civil War – slavery abolished in USA

Rockefeller forms Standard Oil (ESSO) in Ohio

William Booth (1829-1912) founds Salvation Army, in London

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) becomes first woman doctor in England [she later became the first woman mayor in England, in Aldeburgh 1908]

First concrete roads built in Britain

Mendel states his law of heredity

Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland

Tolstoy War and Peace

1866

Atlantic cable first used

Marquis of Queensbury rules accepted for boxing

Winchester repeating rifle comes into use in USA

1867

Dominion of Canada founded

USA buys Alaska from Russia

The Second Reform Bill – vote given to town householders

Fanny Adams murdered in Alton

Typewriter invented (but not commercially successful until 1873)

Nobel produces dynamite

Lister uses carbolic antiseptic

Ibsen Peer Gynt

Strauss Blue Danube

1868

Last British election for which Poll Books available

Last convicts landed in Australia (Western Australia)

Impressionist movement begins to emerge in art

1869

Disestablishment of Irish Church

Imprisonment for debt abolished in Britain

Nov 18: Suez Canal opens

Cutty Sark launched

Transcontinental railway completed in America

Ballbearings, celluloid, margarine, washing machine all invented

1870

GPO takes over the privately-owned Telegraph Companies (nationalised)

Oct 1: First British postcard – halfpenny post

Board Schools start attempting to impose consistent spelling

Dr. Thomas Barnardo opens his first home for destitute children

Water closets come into wide use

Diamonds discovered in Kimberley, Souith Africa

Britain possesses 43% of world's merchant steam tonnage

1870-1900

Art & Crafts Period (Art & Antiques)

1871

Apr 2: Fourth full British census

Jun 29: Trades Unions legalised in Britain, but picketing made illegal

Commissions in British armed forces no longer to be purchased

FA Cup introduced

Stanley finds Livingstone in Africa (some say 1872)

Gilbert and Sullivan begin a 20 year collaboration

Opening of Royal Albert Hall

Verdi Aida

1872

Secret Ballot introduced in Britain (no further Poll Books produced)

Licensing hours introduced

Penalties introduced for failing to register births, marriages & deaths (Eng & Wales)

Penny-farthing bicycles in general use

Over 32,000 friendly societies in England

1873

Glidden invents barbed wire

Jules Verne Around the World in 80 Days

1874

Disraeli and the Tories come to power in Britain – pass 11 major Acts of social reform in next 2 years

First Trades Union MP is elected

Factory Act introduces 56-hour week

Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd

Verdi Requiem

1875

London's main sewage system completed

Captain Webb swims channel

Submarine invented?

Artisan's Dwellings Act

Climbing Boys Act passed

Peaceful picketing permitted again

Universal Postal Union established at Geneva

Britain takes 42% share in Suez Canal

Bizet Carmen

1876

Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone

Annual centralised list of Scottish Wills from now (and most from 1823 also)

Civil Registration of deaths in Isle of Man started

Plimsoll Line established for loading of ships

Victoria proclaimed Empress of India

Battle of Little Big Horn – last major North American Indian victory

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake

1877

Edison invents microphone and phonograph

First tennis championships at Wimbledon

Schiaperelli observes 'canals' on Mars

1878

Edison & Swan invent electric lamp

Red Flag Act in Britain limits mechanical road vehicles to 4mph

CID established at New Scotland Yard

Gilbert and Sullivan HMS Pinafore

1879

First telephone exchanges opened in London & Manchester

Tay Bridge Disaster – bridge collapsed in storm taking train with it – enquiry revealed corners had been cut during construction to reduce costs

Zulu war

Church of Christ Scientist established at Boston

Ibsen Doll's House

1880

Education Act: schooling compulsory for 5-10 year olds

The burial Laws Amendment Act, 1880, Section 13 – To be buried under this Act normally means that the person buried was a non-conformist; the burial service was performed by a Non-Conformist minister, but in a Church of England church, as the burial was going to take place in the churchyard. Before that time, non-conformists could not be buried in parish churchyards.

Britain possesses half world's merchant steam tonnage

Mosquito found to be the carrier of malaria

Rodin The Thinker

1881

Apr 3: Fifth full British Census

Postal Orders introduced

First Boer War – Transvaal independence recognised

Flogging abolished in Army and Royal Navy

1882

May 6: Phoenix Park murders in Dublin

Institution of 'the Ashes' in cricket

Standard Oil Co controls 95% of US oil refining capacity

TB bacillus discovered by Koch

Conan Doyle A Study in Scarlet, first appearance of Sherlock Holmes

1883

Aug 1: Parcel post starts in Britain

Oct 4: Foundation of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow by William Smith

Foundation of the Primrose League, British Conservative organisation, by Lord Randolph Churchill

Married Women's Property Act of 1882 becomes law

Eruption of Krakatoa near Java – 30,000 killed by tidal wave

Statue of Liberty presented to USA by France

Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island

1884

The Third Reform Bill – vote given to agricultural workers

Greenwich Mean Time made prime meridian of the world

Bateman's Great Landowners published (relates to land values in 1882)

First appearance of Oxford English Dictionary (not completed until 1928)

Faberge produces the first of his jewelled Easter eggs for the Tsar

1884-1918

Art Noveau Period (Art & Antiques)

1885

Carl Benz builds single-cylinder motor car

First electric tramcar used at Blackpool

Eastman makes first coated photographic paper

Secretary for Scotland appointed

Jan 26: Fall of Khartoum, General Gordon killed

Mar: First UK cremation in modern times took place at Woking (see 1902)

Sep 5: The first train runs through the Severn Tunnel

Canadian Pacific Railway completed

Twain Huckleberry Finn

1886

Gladstone's first Irish Home Rule Bill rejected

Crofters Act

Hardy The Mayor of Casterbridge

Millais Bubbles

1887

Jun 21: Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee

Daimler produces a four-wheeled motor car

Kipling Plain Tales

Haggard She

1888

County Councils set up in Britain

Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre

First box camera

Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherezade

Van Gogh Sunflowers

1889

Celluloid film produced

Eiffel Tower built (to mark centenary of French Revolution)

Dock Strike – docker's won their "Docker's Tanner", 6 old pennies

Jerome K Jerome Three Men in a Boat

1890

London's first electric Underground

Mar 4: Forth railway bridge opens – took six years to build

1891

Mar 18: First telephone link between London & Paris

Apr 5: Sixth full British Census

Primary education made free and compulsory

1892

Electric oven invented

Shop Hours Act – limit 74 hours per week for under-18s

May 20: Last broad-gauge train leaves Paddington for Plymouth

1893

Keir Hardy founds Independent Labour Party

Henry Ford's first car

Zip fastener invented

Tchaikovsky 6th symphony, and suicide

1894

Jan 1: Manchester Ship Canal opens

Local Government Act passed (start of civil parish councils, etc)

Graduated death duties introduced in Britain

Picture postcard introduced in Britain

Jun 30: Tower Bridge opens

Beatrice and Sidney Webb History of Trade Unionism

Kipling Jungle Book

Shaw Arms and the Man

Debussy L'Apres-midi d'un Faune

1895

Jan 12: The National Trust founded in England

London School of Economics (LSE) established

Mar 22: First public showing of film on screen in Paris by Lumières

Röntgen discovers x-rays

Gugliemo Marconi invents wireless telegraphy – message over a mile

Safety razor invented by King C Gillette

Jul 12: First recorded motor journey of any length (56 miles) in Britain

Oct 17: First people in Britain to be charged with motor offences – John Henry Knight and James Pullinger of Farnham, Surrey

Sir Henry Wood starts Promenade Concerts in London

HG Wells The Time Machine

Chekov The Seagull

1896

Opening of the Underground Railway (the "shooglie") in Glasgow – remains the only underground in Scotland

First modern Olympic Games held in Athens

Klondyke Gold Rush in the Yukon

Term psychoanalysis first comes into use

Puccini La Boheme

Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra

1897

Jun 22: Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

Workmen's Compensation Act: employers liable for insurance of workforce

1898

First photograph using artificial light

Zeppelin builds airship

The Curies discover Radium

Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Henry James The Turn of the Screw

1899-1902

Second Boer War

1899

Oct: Start of Second Boer War

Board of Education established in Britain

Britain's first 'Garden City' laid out at Letchworth

Valdemar Poulsen invents tape recorder

Aspirin invented

Elgar Enigma Variations

Sibelius Finlandia

1900

Feb 28: Relief of Ladysmith

May 17: Relief of Mafeking

June/July: Boxer rising in Peking

School leaving age in Britain raised to 14 years

Central Line opens in London: underground is electrified

Max Planck proposes the Quantum Theory

Escalator shown at Paris exhibition

First transmission of human speech by radio waves

1901

Commonwealth of Australia founded

Jan 22: Queen Victoria dies – Edward VII king

Mar 31: Seventh full British Census (available for inspection Jan 2002)

June: Denunciation of use of concentration camps by British in Boer War

Oct 2: Britain's first submarine launched

Dec 12: First successful radio transmission across the Atlantic, by Marconi – Morse code from Cornwall to Newfoundland

Ragtime introduced into American jazz

Trans-Siberian Railway opened

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2

Kipling Kim

1902

Balfour's Education Act provides for secondary education

Cremation Act – cremation can only take place at officially recognised establishments, and with two death certificates issued

May 24: Empire Day (later Commonwealth Day) first celebrated

May 31: Treaty of Vereeniging ends Second Boer War

Marie Curie discovers radioactivity

USA acquires perpetual control of Panama Canal (not yet completed, see 1913)

Discovery by physicist Heaviside of atmospheric layer which aids conduction of radio waves

Times Literary Supplement appears for first time

1903

Workers' Education Association (WEA) formed in Britain

Women's Social and Political Union formed in Britain by Emmeline Pankhurst

First flight of Wilbur & Orville Wright

Henry Ford sets up his motor company

Bertrand Russell Principles of Mathematics

Shaw Man and Superman

Chekov The Cherry Orchard

1904

Leeds University established

Barrie Peter Pan (invented the name Wendy)

Puccini Madame Butterfly

1905

Aliens Act in Britain: Home Office controls immigration

Germany lays down the first Dreadnought battleship

Einstein publishes theory of relativity

Picasso begins his 'Pink Period' in Paris

Lehar The Merry Widow

Debussy La Mer

1906

Labour Party formed

Free school meals for poor children

Launching of HMS Dreadnought, first turbine-driven battleship

Freud and Jung begin their association

San Francisco earthquake and fire: 400 dead

Amundsen traverses the north-west passage

HW Fowler The King's English

1907

School medical system begins

New Zealand becomes a Dominion

Imperial College, London, is established

First airship flies over London

Pavlov begins his studies on conditioned reflexes

Lumiere develops a process for colour photography

Diaghilev begins to popularise ballet

First 'Cubist' exhibition in Paris

Mahler Symphony No.8

1908

Coal Mines Regulation Act in Britain limits men to an eight hour day

Separate courts for juveniles established in Britain

Lord Baden-Powell starts the Boy Scout movement

First 'Model T' Ford

Grahame The Wind in the Willows

1909

Jan 1: Old Age Pensions Act came into force

Jul 25: Bleriot flies across the Channel (36 minutes, Calais to Dover)

Beveridge Report prompts creation of labour Exchanges

Peary reaches the north pole

First commercial manufacture of Bakelite – start of the plastic age

1910

Constitutional crisis in Britain

Railway strike and coal strikes in Britain

Union of South Africa formed – Botha first Prime Minister

May 6: Edward VII dies – George V king

Crippen caught by radio telegraphy

Madame Curie isolates radium

Halley's comet reappears

Tango becomes popular in North America and Europe

Stravinsky The Fire Bird

1911

Parliament Act in Britain reduces the power of the House of Lords

British MPs receive a salary

Apr 2 Census: Pop. E&W 36M, Scot 4.6M, NI 1.25M

Dec 14: National Insurance in Britain

First British Official Secrets Act

Standard Oil in USA broken up into 33 companies

Rutherford: theory of atomic structures

Amundsen reaches the south pole

GK Chesterton The Innocence of Father Brown

Irving Berlin Alexander's Rag-time Band

1911-1912

Strikes by seamen, dock and transport workers

1912

Irish Home Rule crisis grows in Britain

Apr 14: The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks on maiden voyage – loss of 1,513 lives

Britain nationalises the telephone system

Daily Herald founded – lasts until 1964

Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) founded in Britain

Captain Scott's last expedition – he and his team die on way back from the south pole

Discovery of the 'Piltdown Man' – hoax, exposed in 1953

1913

Third Irish Home Rule Bill rejected by House of Lords – threat of civil war in Ireland – formation of Ulster Volunteers to oppose Home Rule

Suffragette demonstrations in London – Mrs Pankhurst imprisoned

Trade Union Act in Britain establishes the right to use Union funds for political purposes

Panama Canal opened (1914?)

Geiger invents his counter to measure radioactivity

Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

DH Lawrence Sons and Lovers

Shaw Pygmalion

1914-1918

First World War (the "Great War")

1914

Jun 28: Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo

Aug 4: Britain declares war on Germany, citing Belgian neutrality as reason

Oct-Nov: Battle of Ypres – beginning of trench warfare on western front

First Zeppelin air raid on England

Irish Home Rule Act provides for a separate Parliament in Ireland; the position of Ulster to be decided after the War

James Joyce The Dubliners

Chaplin and De Mille make their first films

Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes

Vaughan Williams London Symphony

1915

Feb: Submarine blockade of Britain starts

Apr-May: Second Battle of Ypres – poison gas used for first time

Apr 25: Gallipoli campaign starts

May 7: Lucitania sunk by German submarine off coast of Ireland – 1,198 died

Junkers construct first fighter aeroplane

Coalition Government formed in Britain under Asquith

First automatic telephone exchange in Britain

Einstein General Theory of Relativity

Buchan The Thirty-nine Steps

1916

Feb-Dec: Battle of Verdun – appalling losses on both sides, stalemate continues

Apr 24: Easter Rising in Ireland – after the leaders are executed, public opinion backs independence

May 31-Jun 1: Battle of Jutland – only major naval battle between the British and German fleets

Jun 5: Sinking of HMS Hampshire and death of Kitchener

Jul: Battle of the Somme – first use of tanks by Britain, but of limited effect – over 1 million casualties

Dec 7: Lloyd-George becomes British Prime Minister of the coalition

Compulsory military service introduced in Britain

Kafka Metamorphosis

Holst The Planets

Jazz sweeps through America

1917

February revolution in Russia; Tsar Nicholas abdicates

USA declares war on Germany

Battle of Cambrai – first use of massed tanks, but effect more psychological than actual

Jul-Nov: Battle of Passchendaele – little gained by either side

October Revolution in Russia – Bolsheviks overthrow provisional government; Lenin becomes Chief Commissar

Balfour Declaration: Britain will support a Jewish state in Palestine

Dec 9: British forces capture Jerusalem

Ministry of Labour is established in Britain

George V adopts Windsor as surname

Daniel Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary

1918

Jul-Aug: Second Battle of the Marne: last major German offensive

Nov 11: Armistice signed

Vote for women over 30, men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons)

Civil war in Ireland

World-wide 'flu epidemic

1918-1939

Art Deco Period (Art & Antiques)

1919

Treaty of Versailles

First woman in House of Commons (Viscountess Astor)

Britain adopts a 48-hour working week

Irish MPs meet as Dail Eirann

Alcock and Brown fly Atlantic

Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting the atom

Keynes The Economic Consequencies of War

Sassoon War Poems

HL Mencken The American Language

1920

First meeting of the League of Nations

Further civil war in Ireland

Feb: First roadside petrol filling station in UK – opened by the Automobile Association at Aldermaston on the Bath Road

Regular cross-channel air service starts

Oxford University admits women to degrees

Marconi opens a radio broadcasting station in Britain

Thompson patents his machine gun (Tommy gun)

DH Lawrence Women in Love

1921

Jun 19 Census: Pop. E&W 37.9M, Scot 4.9M, NI 1.25M

Dec 6: Irish Free State and Northern Ireland formed

Irish Regiments of British Army disbanded

Railway Act in Britain amalgamates companies – only four remained

First birth control clinic

Chaplin The Kid, first full-length film

Prokofiev The Love for Three Oranges

1922

Fall of Lloyd-George coalition

BBC established as a monopoly, and begins transmissions

Tomb of Tutankhamen discovered in Egypt

TS Eliot The Waste Land

Joyce Ulysses published in Paris

1923

Mussolini becomes dictator of Italy

Massive inflation in Germany leads to collapse of the currency

Canberra made Federal Capital of Australia

First publication of Radio Times

First Wembley cup final (West Ham 0, Bolton 2) – "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" popular song of the time, became the West Ham anthem

Hubble shows there are galaxies beyond the Milky Way

First American broadcasts heard in Britain

Freud The Ego and the Id

PG Wodehouse The Inimitable Jeeves

Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue

1924

Jan 4-Nov 4: First Labour government, headed by Ramsay MacDonald

Death of Lenin; succeeded by Stalin

British Imperial Airways begin operations (became BOAC in 1940)

Forster A Passage to India

1925

Britain returns to gold standard

Adolf Hitler writes Mein Kampf

Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Noel Coward Hay Fever

Charleston dance becomes fashionable

1926

Apr 26: General Strike begins, till May 12 (mine workers for 6 months more)

First public demonstration of television (TV) by John Logie Baird

Adoption of children is legalised in Britain

Byrd makes flight to north pole

Kodak produces 16mm movie film

Walt Disney arrives in Hollywood

HW Fowler Dictionary of Modern English Usage

1927

German economy collapses on 'Black Friday'

Lindbergh makes solo flight across the Atlantic

Release of the first 'talkie' film (The Jazz Singer)

1928

Women over 21 get vote in Britain – same qualification for both sexes

Teleprinters start to be used

Walt Disney begins his 'Mickey Mouse' pictures

Turkey adopts Roman alphabet

DH Lawrence Lady Chatterley's Lover

Ravel Bolero

Brecht and Weill The Threepenny Opera

1929

Abolition of Poor Law system in Britain

Minimum age for a marriage in Britain (which had been 14 for a boy and 12 for a girl) now 16 for both sexes, with parental consent (or a licence) needed for anyone under 21

Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers penicillin

Wall Street crash on 'Black Tuesday'

BBC begins experimental TV transmissions

Einstein Unified Field Theory

Hemingway A Farewell to Arms

1930

First Nazis elected to the German Reichstag

Oct 5: R101 airship disaster – British abandon airship construction

Youth Hostel Association (YHA) founded in Britain

Discovery of planet Pluto by Tombaugh

Film All Quiet on the Western Front

1931

Apr 26 Census: Pop. E&W 40M, Scot 4.8M, NI 1.24M (but details destroyed by fire during WW2)

Statute of Westminster: British Dominions become independent sovereign states

Oct 21: National Government formed to deal with economic crisis – Britain comes off gold standard

Collapse of the German banking system; 3,000 banks there close

Unemployment in Germany reaches 5.66M

Empire State Building completed in New York

1932

Great Hunger March of unemployed to London

Moseley founds British Union of Fascists

Roosevelt elected President of USA

Slump grows worse in USA; 5,000 banks close, unemployment rises

Cockroft and Walton accelerate particles to disintegrate an atomic nucleus

Sir Thomas Beecham established the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Huxley Brave New World (see 1963)

1933

Jan 30: Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany

Roosevelt launches his 'New Deal'

Oxford Union: "This House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country"

ICI scientists discover polythene

Only 6 pennies minted in Britain this year

1934

Hitler becoms Fuehrer of Germany

Mao Tse-tung's 'Long March' starts in China

Graves I, Claudius

Flying Down to Rio first Rogers/Astaire film

1935

Italy invades Abyssinia

London adopts a 'Green Belt' scheme

Hore-Belisha introduces pedestrian crossings and speed limits for built-up areas in Britain

Land speed record of 301.13 mph by Malcolm Campbell

TS Eliot Murder in the Cathedral

1936

Jan 20: George V dies; Edward VIII king

First public TV transmission

Jet engine first tested

Queen Mary makes maiden voyage

Jesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at Berlin Olympic Games

Jul 18: Spanish Civil War starts

Dec 5: Edward VIII abdicates (announced Dec 10) – popular carol that Christmas: "Hark the Herald Angels sing, Mrs Simpson's got our King"

Duke of York becomes George VI

Chaplin film Modern Times

Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf

1937

Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister in Britain – policy of appeasement towards Hitler

German planes bomb Guernica in Spain

Japanese forces invade China

Alan Turing publishes outline of his 'Turing Machine'

Largest ocean liner ever built Queen Elizabeth launched on Clydebank

Zeppelin Hindenburg destroyed by fire in USA after lightning struck it at the landing tower

Billy Butlin opens his first holiday camp

Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Carl Orff Carmina Burana

Picasso Guernica

1938

Germany invades and annexes Austria

Chamberlain visits Hitler in Munich – promises 'peace in our time'

Principle of paid holidays established in Britain

HMS Rodney first ship to be equipped with radar

Nylon invented (name derives from New York-London)

First practical ball-point pen produced by Hungarian journalist, Lajos Biro

1939-45

Second World War (the "Peoples War")

1939

Germany annexes Czechoslovakia

Sep 1: Germany invades Poland

Sep 3: Britain and France declare war on Germany at 5pm

Sep 6: First air-raid on Britain

Sep 11: British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France

Oct 14: HMS Royal Oak sunk in Scapa Flow with loss of 810 lives

Dec 7: 'First flight' of Canadian troops sail for Britain – 7,400 men on 5 ships

Start of evacuation of women and children from London

Coldest winter in Britain since 1894, though this could not be publicised at the time

1940

May 11: National Government formed under Churchill

May 24: Germany invades France

May 27-Jun 4: Evacuation of British Army at Dunkirk

Jun 25: Fall of France

Sep 7: Germany launches bombing blitz on Britain

Sep 15: Battle of Britain in the air ends with British victory

Trotsky assassinated on Stalin's orders

First successful helicopter flight

Prehistoric wall paintings found at Lascaux Caves in France

Films: Fantasia, The Great Dictator

Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls

1941

No census – total British population estimated at 48.2M

June 22: Germany invades Russia

July 1: First Canadian armoured regiments arrive in Britain

Dec 6: Japan attackes US fleet at Pearl Harbour

Dec 8: USA enters the War

Dec: Canadian forces given operation role in defending south coast of England

Manhatten Project of nuclear research begins in America

Britain introduces severe rationing

First British jet aircraft flies, based on work of Whittle

Bailey invents his portable military bridge

First use of antibiotics

Film Citizen Kane

1942

May 30: Over 1,000 bombers raid Cologne

Aug 19: Abortive raid on Dieppe, largely by Canadian troops

Sep 6: Germans defeated at Stalingrad

Oct 23-Nov 4: Battle of El Alamein – Montgomery defeats Rommel

Invention of world's first programmable computer by Alan Turing in co-operation with Max Neumann – used to crack German codes

Beveridge Report Social Security and National Insurance

Gilbert Murray founds Oxfam

Film Bambi

1943

'Dam Buster' raids on Ruhr dams by RAF

Allies invade Italy

Round-the-clock bombing of Germany begins

Antibiotic Streptomycin isolated by Waksman

1944

Jun 4: Allies enter Rome

Jun 6: D-Day invasion of Normandy

Jun 12: First V1 flying bombs hit London

Sep 8: First V2 rocket bombs hit London

Sep 11: Allies enter Germany

Dec 16: Battle of the Bulge: German counter-offensive

Butler Education Act: Britain to provide secondary education for all children

1945

Feb 4: Yalta Conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

Apr 25: Berlin surrounded by Russian troops

Apr 30: Hitler commits suicide

May 8: VE Day

Jun 26: UN Charter signed

Aug 6: Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Aug 9: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki

Aug 15: VJ Day

Sep 2: Japanese surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri

Orwell Animal Farm

Britten Peter Grimes opera

Brecht The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Flora Thompson Lark Rise to Candleford

1946

First session of new United Nations Organisation held

Churchill fist uses the term 'Iron Curtain' in a speech in Missouri

Transition to National Health Service starts in Britain (came into being 5th July 1948)

US starts nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll – hence the name adopted for the garment which 'reveals the most potent forces of nature'!

Russell History of Western Philosophy

O'Neill The Iceman Cometh

First Cannes Film Festival held

1947

Most severe winter in Britain for 53 years at start of the year – heavy snow and much flooding later

Jan 1: Coal Mines nationalised

Apr 1: School leaving age raised to 15 in Britain

India gains independence: sub-continent partitioned to form India (Secular, Hindu majority) and Pakistan (Islamic)

Dead Sea Scrolls found

First British nuclear reactor developed

Chuck Yeager first to break the sound barrier

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

1948

Jan 1: British Railways nationalised

UN sanctions the creation of the State of Israel – first Israel/Arab war

Gandhi assassinated

Policy of apartheid starts in South Africa

Jul 1: Berlin airlift starts (to 12 May 1949)

Jul 5: National Health Service (NHS) begins in Britain

British Citizenship Act : all Commonwealth citizens qualify for British passports

Transistor radio invented

Long-playing record (LP) invented by Goldmark

Kinsey Report in USA Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male

World Health Organisation (WHO) established as part of UN

200 inch reflecting telescope constructed at Mount Palomar, California

'Steady State' theory of the Universe proposed by Bondi and Gold

Mailer The Naked and the Dead

1949

NATO formed

Russians explode their first atomic bomb

Russians lift the Berlin blockade

De Haviland produces the Comet – first jet airliner (see 1952)

Mar 15: Clothes rationing ends in Britain

Orwell 1984, (written in 1948, for which the title in an anagram)

Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman

Film The Third Man

1950

May 19: Points rationing ends in Britain

May 26: Petrol rationing ends in Britain

Jun 25: Korean War starts (to 27 Jul 1953)

Sep 9: Soap rationing ends in Britain

McCarthy begins Enquiry into Un-American Activities

China invades Tibet

UN Building completed in New York

1951

Census: Pop. E&W 43.7M, Scot 5M. NI 1.37M

May 3: Festival of Britain opens on South Bank, London

Electricity first produced by nuclear power (see 1962)

Salinger Catcher in the Rye

Britten Billy Budd

1952

Feb 6: George VI dies; Elizabeth II queen, returns from Kenya

Feb 21: Identity Cards abolished in Britain

Nov: US explodes Hydrogen Bomb

Britian explodes her first atomic bomb

Contraceptive pill invented (see 1961)

First commercial jet airliner service launched

First atomic powered sumbmarine USS Nautilus

Radioactive carbon used for dating prehistoric objects

Bonn Convention: Britain, France and USA end their occupation of West Germany

Becket Waiting for Godot

Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea

Steinbeck East of Eden

1953

Feb 5: Sweet rationing ends in Britain

May 29: Everest conquered by Hillary and Tensing

Jun 2: Coronation of Elizabeth II

Sep 26: Sugar rationing ends in Britain (after nearly 14 years)

Death of Stalin: Malenkov becomes Premier of USSR

End of the Korean War

USSR explodes Hydrogen Bomb

Structure of DNA discovered by Watson, Crick and Wilkins

Arthur Miller The Crucible

1954

May 6: First sub 4 minute mile (Roger Bannister, 3 mins 59.4 secs)

Jul 3: Food rationing officially ends in Britain

First comprehensive school opens in London

Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood

Golding Lord of the Flies

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

British Top 20 begins: first No.1 was Hold My Hand by Don Cornell

1955

Royal Commission on Common Land started – led to 1965 Common Land Registration Act

Commercial TV starts in Britain

Anti-polio vaccine developed by Salk

Pop music: Bill Haley Rock Around the Clock

1956

Jun3: 3rd class travel abolished on British Railways

Sep 25: Submarine telephone cable across the Atlantic opened

Oct 31: Britain and France invade Suez

Nov 16: Suez canal blocked (till 5 Jun 1975? – or was this from the 1967 conflict?)

Britain constructs world's first large-scale nuclear power station in Cumberland

First anti-nuclear protest march to Aldermaston (emergence of CND)

Emergence of the Angry Young Men in English literature

1957

Jun 1: Premiun Bonds first prizes drawn

Oct 4: Sputnik I launched by Soviet Union – first artificial satellite

Treaty of Rome to create European Economic Community (EEC) of six countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg – became operational Jan 1958

Britain explodes her first hydrogen bomb, at Christmas Island

Pop music: Elvis Presley All Shook Up

1958

Feb 25: CND launched

Jul 26: Charles created Prince of Wales

Charles de Gaulle establishes Fifth Republic in France

Race riots in Britain, at Notting Hill and in Nottingham

Munich air disaster – Manchester United team members killed

USS Nautilus travels under the polar ice cap

USA begins to produce Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)

USA launches its first satellite – space race with the USSR begins

Electronic computers begin to be used in research, industry and commerce

Van Allen radiation belt round the earth detected

Stereophonic records come into use

The Beatles pop group formed

Beckett Krapp's Last Tape

Pasternak Dr Zhivago

Pop music: Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire; Everly Brothers All I Have to do is Dream

1959

May 24: Empire Day becomes Commonwealth Day

Aug: BMC Mini car launched

Sep 5: Introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) in Britain

Oct 3: Postcodes introduced in Britain

Nov 1: First section of M1 motorway opened

Charles de Gaulle becomes French President

European Free Trade Association (EFTA) established as an alternative to the EEC

Hawaii becomes 50th State of the USA

USSR lands unmanned Lunik on the moon

Leakey discovers 600,000 year-old human remains in Tanganyika

Films Some Like it Hot and La Dolce Vita

Anouilh Becket

Pop music: Buddy Holly It Doesn't Matter Any More; Cliff Richard Living Doll; Adam Faith What Do You Want

1960

Feb 3: Macmillan 'wind of change' speech in South Africa

Seventeen African colonies become independent this year

Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa

Mar 17: New £1 notes issued by Bank of England

Mar 18: Last steam locomotive of British Railways named

Sep 12: MoT tests on motor vehicles introduced

Oct 1: HMS Dreadnought nuclear submarine launched

Russian Sputnik orbits carrying two live dogs

First lasers demonstrated

International Agreement to reserve Antarctica for scientific research

Pinter The Caretaker

Film Psycho

Pop music: Eddie Cochran Three Steps to Heaven; Shadows Apache

1961

Jan 1: Farthing ceases to be legal tender

Mar 8: First US Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch

Mar 13: Black & White £5 notes cease to be legal tender

Mar 14: New English Bible (New Testament) published

Apr 12: Yuri Gagarin first man in space – followed shortly afterwards by Alan Shepard

Apr 23: Census: Pop. E&W 46M, Scot 5.1M, NI 1.4M

May 1: Betting shops legal in Britain

Oct 10: Volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha – whole population evacuated to Britain

Berlin Wall built

Oral contraceptive launched

Joseph Heller Catch-22

Film West Side Story

Pop music: Helen Shapiro Walking Back to Happiness

1962

May 25: Consecration of new Coventry Cathedral (old destroyed in WW2 blitz) – Britten War Requiem

Jun 15: First nuclear generated electricity to supplied National Grid (from Berkeley, Glos)

Jul 10: First live TV between US and Europe (Telstar)

US Ranger 4 lands on the moon

Oct 24: Cuba missile crisis – brink of nuclear war

Dec 22: No frost-free nights in Britain till 5 Mar 1963

Britain passes Commonwealth Immigrants Act to control immigration

Molecular structure of DNA discovered

Thalidomide withdrawn after it causes deformities in babies

Britain and France agree to construct Concorde (see 1969)

John Glenn first American in orbit (3 circuits in Friendship 7)

Film Jules et Jim

Solzhenitsyn A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Pop music: Beatles From Me to You, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand

1963

Mar 27: Beeching Report on British Railways (the 'Beeching Axe')

Aug 1: Minimum prison age raised to 17

Aug 8: 'Great Train Robbery' on Glasgow to London mail train

Sep 17: Fylingdales (Yorks) early warning system operational

Sep 25: Denning Report on Profumo affair

Nov 18: Dartford Tunnel opens

Nov 22: President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas; Aldous Huxley died the same day

Valentina Tereshkova first woman in space

France vetoes Britain's entry into EEC

Beatles achieve international fame

Rachel Carson Silent Spring, on the effects of chemical pesticides on the environment

Film The Birds

1964

Apr 9: First Greater London Council (GLC) election

Apr 21: BBC2 TV starts

Sep 4: Forth road bridge opens

China explodes an atomic bomb

US Ranger 7 sends back 4,000 photos from the moon

The Sun newspaper founded in Britain

McLuhan Understanding Media

CP Snow Corridors of Power

Films Dr Strangelove and A Fistful of Dollars

Pop music: Beatles Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine; Rolling Stones It's All Over Now, Little Red Rooster; Animals House of the Rising Sun; Chuck Berry No Particular Place to Go

1965

Feb 7: First US raids against North Vietnam

Apr 6: Launch of Early Bird commercial communications satellite

Aug 1: TV ban on cigarette advertising in Britain

Sep 21: Oil strike by BP in North Sea (or natural gas?)

Oct 28: Death penalty abolished in Britain for murder [some say 18 Dec 1969]

Nov 11: Declaration of UDI in Rhodesia

Dec 22: 70mph speed limit on British roads

Post Office Tower completed in London

Britain enacts first Race Relations Act

Common Land Registration Act – people who thought they still held common rights had to register them

First astronauts 'walk' in space

Pop music: Beatles Ticket to Ride, Help!, Day Tripper; Rolling Stones The Last Time; Kinks Tired of Waiting for You; Byrds Mr Tambourine Man

1966

Feb 3: Soft landing on moon by unmanned Luna 9 – followed by Surveyor 1

Mar 23: Archbishop of Canterbury meets Pope in Rome

May 16: Seamen's strike (ended 1 Jul)

Jul 30: World Cup won by England at Wembley (4-2 in extra time v West Germany)

Sep 8: First Severn road bridge opens

Oct 21: Aberfan disaster – slag heap slip kills 144, incl. 116 children

Dec 1: First Christmas stamps issued in Britain

Eighteen new universities were created in Britain between 1961-1966

Pop music: Sinatra Strangers in the Night; Beach Boys Good Vibrations

1967

Jan 27: Three US astronauts killed in fire during launch pad test

Mar 18: Torrey Canyon oil tanker runs aground off Lands End

May 28: Francis Chichester arrives in Plymouth after solo circumnavigation in Gipsy Moth IV (he was knighted 7th July at Greenwich by the queen using the sword with which Elizabeth I had knighted Sir Francis Drake four centuries earlier)

Jun 5-10: Six Day War in Middle East – closes Suez Canal for 8 years (until 1975)

Jul 1: First colour TV in Britain

Jul 13: Public Record Act – records now closed for only 30 years (but the census is still closed for 100 years)

Jul 18: Withdrawal from East of Suez by mid-70s announced

Sep 3: Sweden changes rule of road to drive on right

Sep 20: QE2 launched on Clydebank

Sep 27: Queen Mary arrives Southampton at end of her last transatlantic voyage

Oct 5: Introduction of majority verdicts in English courts

Dec 3: First human heart transplant (in South Africa by Christiaan Barnard)

Che Guevara killed in Bolivia – becomes a cult hero

Leakey discovers fossil remains which are 20M years old

Russian spacecraft Venus IV makes soft landing on Venus

McLuhan The Medium is the Message

Film The Graduate

Stoppard Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Pop music: Monkees I'm a Believer; Beatles All You Need is Love; Procul Harem A Whiter Shade of Pale

1968

Feb 18: British Standard Time introduced – Summer Time became permanent [which I remember thinking was a great idea!], but arguments prevailed and we reverted to GMT in October 1971 :–(

Apr 23: Issue of 5p and 10p decimal coins in Britain

May 6: Enoch Powell 'Rivers of Blood' speech on immigration

May 10: Student riots in Paris

Jul 29: Pope encyclical condemns all artificial forms of birth control

Sep 15: Severe flooding in England

Sep 16: Two-tier postal rate starts in Britain

Oct 5: Beginning of disturbances in N Ireland

Commenwealth Immigration Act further restricts immigrants

Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy both assassinated in USA

Apollo 8 orbits the moon with a crew of 3 and returns to earth safely

Ryle discovers Pulsars, radio stars emitting regular pulses of energy

Film 2001

Pop music: Rolling Stones Jumping Jack Flash; Beatles Hey Jude

1969

Mar 2: Maiden flight of Concorde

Mar 7: Victoria Line tube opens in London

Apr 17: Voting age lowered from 21 to 18

Jul 1: Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle

Jul 21: First men land on the moon (Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin)

Jul 31: Halfpenny ceases to be legal tender in Britain

Oct 14: 50p coin introduced in Britain (reduced in size 1998)

Civil disturbances in Ulster – Britain sends troops to support civil authorities

Open University established in Britain, teaching via radio and TV

Labour Government issues White Paper In Place of Strife– attempts to reform the Trades Union movement

Roth Portnoy's Complaint

Films Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy

Pop music: Marvin Gaye I Heard it on the Grapevine

Woodstock Music Festival in USA attracts 300,000 fans

1970

Mar 16: Publication of complete New English Bible

Jun 17: Decimal postage stamps first issued for sale in Britain

Jul 30: Damages awarded to Thalidomide victims

Nov 20: Ten shilling note goes out of circulation in Britain

Boeing 747 (Jumbo jet) goes into service

Film MASH

Pop music: Simon & Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water

1971

Jan 1: Divorce Reform Act (1969) comes into force

Jan 3: Open University starts

Feb 15: Decimalisation of coinage in Britain

Aug 9: Internment without trial introduced in N Ireland

Oct 28: Parliament votes to join Common Market (joined 1973)

Sunday becomes the seventh day in the week as UK adopts decision of the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) to call Monday the first day

'Greenpeace' founded

Rolls-Royce declared bankrupt

Film A Clockwork Orange

Pop music: Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven

1972

Feb 9: Power workers crisis

Oct 5: United Reformed Church founded out of Congregational and Presbyterian Churches in E&W

Britain imposes direct rule in Northern Ireland

Strict anti-hijack measures introduced internationally, especially at airports

Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka

1973

Jan 1: Britain enters Common Market (with Ireland and Denmark)

Jan 27: Vietnam ceasefire agreement signed

Apr 1: VAT introduced in Britain

Yom Kippur War precipitates world oil crisis

Dec 31: Miners strike and oil crisis precipitate 'three-day week' (till 9 Mar 1974) to conserve power

1974

Aug 8: President Nixon resigns over Watergate scandal

Several new 'counties' formed in Britain

US Mariner satellite transmits detailed pictures of Venus and Mercury

India becomes the sixth nation to explode a nuclear device

1975

Feb 11: Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of Conservative party (in opposition)

Apr 30: End of Vietnam war

Jun 5: Suez canal reopens (after 8 years closure)

Nov 3: First North Sea oil comes ashore [some say 11 June]

Dec 27: Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act come into force

Unemployment in Britain rises above 1M for first time since before WW2

First personal computers (PC) introduced

Film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Pop music: Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here

1976

Jan 21: Concorde enters supersonic passenger service [see 2000]

Aug 6: Drought Act 1976 comes into force

'Cod War' between Britain and Iceland

Deaths exceeded live births in E&W for first time since records began in 1837

Death of Mao Tse-tung

Viking 1 & Viking 2 landed on Mars

National Theatre opens in London

1977

Mar 23: Lib-Lab pact

Jun 1: Road speed limits: 70mph dual roads; 60mph single

Jun 7: Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in London

Astronomers observe rings round Uranus

Elvis Presley dies

Pop music: Wings Mull of Kintyre; rise of Punk bands such as 'The Sex Pistols'

1978

Apr 8: Regular broadcast of proceedings in Parliament starts

May 1: First May Day holiday in Britain

Jul 25: World's first 'test tube' baby, Louise Browne born in Oldham

Oct 15: Pope John Paul II, first non-Italian for 450 years

Nov 30: Publication of The Times suspended – industrial relations problems (until 13 Nov 1979)

Film The Deer Hunter

Pop music: Fleetwood Mac Rumours

1979

Feb 1: Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran

Mar 1: 32.5% of Scots vote in favour of devolution (40% needed) – Welsh vote overwhelmingly against

Mar 31: Withdrawal of Royal Navy from Malta

May 4: Margaret Thatcher becomes first woman Prime Minister

Aug 27: Lord Mountbatten killed in bomb blast off coast of Sligo, Ireland

Sep 18: ILEA votes to abolish corporal punishment in its schools

Nov 13: The Times returns to circulation

1980

May 5: SAS storm Iranian Embassy in London to free hostages

Dec 8: John Lennon assassinated in New York

Death of President Tito of Yugoslavia

'Solidarity' formed by unions in Poland

'Stealth' bomber developed by USA

Film The Elephant Man

1981

Jan 25: Launch of SDP by 'Gang of Four' in Britain

Mar 29: First London marathon run

Apr 5: Census day in Britain

Apr 12: US Space Shuttle (Columbia) launched

Apr 25: Worst April blizzards this century in Britain

Jul 29: Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer

Brixton riots in South London – 30 other British cities also experience riots

Film Chariots of Fire

1982

Jan 26: Unemployment reached 3 million in Britain (1 in 8 of working population)

Mar 18: Argentinians raised flag in South Georgia

Apr 2: Argentina invades Falkland (Malvinas) Islands

Apr 5: Royal Navy fleet sails from Portsmouth for Falklands

Jun 14: Ceasefire in Falklands

Jun 21: Birth of Prince William of Wales

Oct 11: Mary Rose raised in the Solent (sank 1545)

Oct 31: Thames Barrier raised for first time

Nov 4: Lorries up to 38 tonnes allowed on Britain's roads

Dec 12: Women's peace protest at Greenham Common (Cruise missiles arrived 14 Nov 1983)

Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope pray together in Canterbury Cathedral

First permanent artificial heart fitted in Salt Lake City

Film ET

1983

Jan 17: Start of breakfast TV in Britain

Jan 31: Seat belt law comes into force

Apr 21: £1 coin into circulation in Britain

Oct 7: Plans to abolish GLC announced

First female Lord Mayor of London elected (Dame Mary Donaldson)

Pop music: Michael Jackson Thriller

1984

Jan 9: FTSE index exceeded 800

Jun 22: Inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic

Oct 12: IRA bomb explodes at Tory conference hotel in Brighton – 4 killed

Oct 24: High Court orders sequestration of NUM assets

Dec 3: British Telecom privatised – shares make massive gains on first day's trading

George Orwell got it wrong (in his book '1984', written in 1948)

1985

Mar 3: Miners agree to call off strike

Mar 11: Al Fayed buys Harrods

Jul 13: Live Aid pop concert raises over £50M for famine relief

Sep: Wreck of Titanic found (sank 1912)

1986

Mar 31: GLC and 6 metropolitan councils abolished

Apr 28: Chernobyl nuclear accident – radiation reached Britain 2 May

May 7: Mannie Shinwell, veteran politician, dies aged 101

1987

Terry Waite kidnapped in Beirut (released Nov 1991)

Car ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes off Zeebrugge – 188 die

Order of the Garter opened to women

Oct: The 'Hurricane' sweeps southern England

Oct: 'Black Monday' in the City of London – Stock Market crash

1988

Copyright Act

Dec 21: Lockerbie disaster – Pan Am flight 103 explodes over Scotland

1989

Poll Tax implemented in Scotland

House of Commons proceedings first televised

Berlin Wall torn down

Second edition of Oxford English Dictionary published

1990

Margaret Thatcher resigns as Conservative party leader (and Prime Minister)

Poll Tax implemented in England & Wales – riots

Apr 25: Hubble space telescope launched

Aug 2: Iraq invades Kuwait

Dec 1: Channel Tunnel excavation teams meet in the middle

Nelson Mandela released in South Africa

1991

Poll Tax replaced (by Council Tax)

Robert Maxwell drowns at sea

Helen Sharman is first British Astronaut in Space

1992

Coal industry privatised

1993

Jul: Ratification of Maastricht Treaty, established the European Union (EU)

Betty Boothroyd first woman Speaker of the House of Commons (to 2000)

Elizabeth II becomes first British Monarch to pay Income Tax

1994

Nov: National Lottery starts

Channel Tunnel open to traffic

15 million people connected to the Internet by now

1995

Nick Leeson brings down Barings

First Grayshott Literary Festival

1996

Hale-Bopp comet

1997

May: Labour landslide victory in Britain (Tony Blair replaces John Major as Prime Minister)

Aug: Diana, Princess of Wales killed in car crash

Mars landing by American Rover

Land speed record breaks sound barrier for first time

Scientists in Scotland clone a sheep (Dolly)

Hong Kong returned to China

1998

Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland – effectively implemented when separate N Ireland parliament created in Dec 1999

1999

Jan 1: European Monetary Union begins – UK opts out – by the end of the year the Euro has approximately the same value as the US Dollar

Nov 11: Hereditary Peers no longer have right to sit in House of Lords

Dec: Separate parliaments created for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (but not for England)

World population reaches 6 billion (estimate)

2000

Jan 1: Millennium celebrations postponed due to widespread computer failures! – only joking!!

The year in Britain started with a 'flu bug rather than a millennium bug

Millennium Dome at Greenwich got off to a bad start when Press and celebratories were left queuing for tickets in the rain, and they never forgave it – the project was dogged by problems all year and became the butt of jokes

Mar: London Eye opens, late but popular

Millennium footbridge over the Thames opens, but wobbles and is quickly declared dangerous and closed

Aug: A chartered Air France Concorde crashes on take-off at Paris with loss of all lives – debris on the runway blamed for causing fuel to escape and catch fire, and all Concordes grounded until 7 November 2001

Sep: 'People Power' emerged suddenly as protestors against high Road Fuel Tax used mobile phones and the Internet to co-ordinate blockades on fuel depots – resulted in nationwide panic buying of fuel and service stations running out across the country

Oct: Derailment at speed on the main London-North eastern line at Hatfield caused by a broken rail – Railtrack put restrictions on the rest of the network while all other suspect locations were checked

Oct/Nov/Dec: Heavy rains cause worst flooding since records began (1850s) in many parts of Britain

Nov 14: New Prayer Book introduced in Anglican Church – the way this year's going, we need it!

Dec: US Presidential election goes to a penalty shoot out!

2001

Jan 1: Real millennium celebrations begin!!

Feb: Outbreak of Foot & Mouth disease in UK

– lasted until October

– caused postponement of local and general elections from May to June

Mar 23: Mir space station successfully ditched in the Pacific

Apr 29: UK Census Day

May 12: FA Cup Final played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff – first time away from Wembley since 1922

June 7: General Election – Labour returned again with a large majority, the first time they had succeeded in gaining a second term – but turnout lowest since 1918

Sep 1: New-style number plates on road vehicles in UK [eg. AB 51 ABC]

Sep 11: Massive terrorist attack on the United States – commercial planes hi-jacked and crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre (destroying it) and the Pentagon

Nov 7: Concorde flights resume after modifications to tyres and fuel tanks

UK Christmas stamps self-adhesive for the first time (self-adhesive 1st & 2nd class definitives already on sale)

2002

Jan 1: Twelve major countries in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Holland, Irish Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Portugal) and their dependents start using the Euro instead of their old national currencies; the UK stays out – the Euro worth 62½p at this time

Jan 2: UK 1901 census details available – see http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/

Special Days in the Year

• March 25 (Old Style) – Lady Day; first day of New Year until 1753 – one of the Quarter Days in England when rents become due. Became April 6th (New Style), which is why our present Tax Year starts on this day! - Note method of remembering Quarter days: last digit is the same as the number of letters in the month name [so March = 25, June = 24, September = 29] except for Christmas Day, which you just have to remember!
• Fourth Sunday in Lent – Mothering Sunday – simnel cake eaten
• Easter Sunday - the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.
• Second Monday & Tuesday after Easter – Hocktide – money collected for charitable purposes by men binding with cord any woman they met and receiving payment for release – women bound men on the next day.
• June 24 – Midsummer's Day or St John's Day – one of the Quarter Days in England
• July 15 – St Swithun's Day
• August 1 [Aug 13 from 1753 onwards] – Lammas Day – Fences removed from common land which had been cultivated during the summer, and livestock permitted to graze over it till re-seeded again. An old Quarter Day in Scotland.
• Sept 29 – Michaelmas Day – one of the Quarter Days in England – termination date for men and women who had been hired as labourers and servants at the fairs the year before.
• Nov 11 – Martinmas – once a Quarter Day in Scotland.
• Dec 13 – St Lucy's Day – the shortest day before the new calendar was introduced.
• Dec 25 – Christmas Day – one of the Quarter Days in England.
• Jan 5 – Twelfth Night.
• Monday after Jan 6th – Plough Monday – marked return to work after Christmas festivities.
• Feb 2 – Candlemas Day - one of the Quarter Days in Scotland.

It represents the combined efforts of a number of contributors, but none of us would want you to think that it represents all the important events in British history, or have you believe that everything you read here is necessarily accurate or undisputed.

Nor, I might add, do we imply that all the inventions, etc, listed here are British ones – but it can be useful, for example, to know whether your ancestor (or the character in that historical novel which you're writing) could have been using a particular item at the time they were living. At least, I think so.

We have done our best, and hope that you will take the list in that spirit.
If you have any better information which you feel should be added, please let me know.

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• John Hitchcock – Victorian London Research
• Marina Alexander
• Iain Kerr – in Windsor, Berkshire
• Hilary Brookes – list as submitted to Yorksgen
• Bryan Wetton – Adelaide South Australia "A Southerner from the North"
• John Owen Smith – Home Page