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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1843 | - 1843: Alexander Bain (1818-1903) invented an early fax machine
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| 2 | 1844 | - 1844: Charles Darwin wrote, but didn't publish, an essay presaging the theory of the origin of species.
- 1844: Samuel Finley Breese Morse demonstrates a telegraph, using a code of his own invention
- 1844: Parliament passes the Bank Charter Act. Foundation of the Rochdale Co-Operative Society and the Royal Commission on the Health of Towns
- 1844: Two years of railway mania begins across Britain. Massive investment and speculation leads to the laying of 5,000 miles of track
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| 3 | 1845 | - 1845: Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people in two years
- 1845: Engels publishes 'The Condition of the Working Class in England'
- 1845: There are reckoned to be 210 accountants in London
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| 4 | 1846 | - 1846: End of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry. Whigs come to Power. Repeal of the Corn Laws
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| 5 | 1847 | - 1847: Flourens discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform
- 1847: Levi Strauss invents denim jeans
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| 6 | 1848 | - 1848: Major Chartist demonstration in London. Revolutions in Europe. Parliament passes the Public Health Act
- 1848: Karl Marx publishes 'The Communist Manifesto' and 'Das Kapital'
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| 7 | 1849 | - 1849: Howe patents the safety-pin
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| 8 | 1850 | - 1850: American Joel Houghton invented the first dishwasher. He made it out of wood, and gave it a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on the dishes inside. It didn't really work, but it did get the first "dishwasher" patent
- 1850: First machine-made paper bag
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| 9 | 1851 | - 1851: The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success
- 1851: Patent for Singer sewing machine issued
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| 10 | 1852 | - 1852: Death of the Duke of Wellington. Derby's first minority Conservative government. Aberdeen's coalition government is established
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| 11 | 1853 | - 1853: Potato crisps invented by a cook named George Crum.
- 1853: Florence Nightingale first recommended the regimen of cleanliness which dramatically reduced the death rate in hospitals
- 1853: Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory. Queen Victoria uses chloroform during birth of Prince Leopold. Gladstone presents his first budget
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| 12 | 1854 | - 1854: The Northcote-Trevelyan civil service report is published; and The Crimean War begins, as Britain and France attempt to defend European interests in the Middle East against Russia
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| 13 | 1855 | - 1855: John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump.
- 1855: End of Aberdeen's coalition government. Palmerston's first government comes to power
- 1855: Yale lock invented
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| 14 | 1856 | - 1856: Crimean War comes to an end. The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery
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| 15 | 1857 | - 1857: Cyrus Field made his first attempt at laying a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. In 1866, his fourth attempt was successful.
- 1857: The Second Opium War opens China to European trade. The Indian Mutiny erupts against British Rule on the sub-continent
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| 16 | 1858 | - 1858: Derby establishes his second minority government. Parliament passes the India Act
- 1858: Eraser fitted to end of pencil
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| 17 | 1859 | - 1859: Darwin in 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', asserted all life had a common ancestor and that the origin of species was natural selection
- 1859: End of Derby's second minority government. Palmerston brings his second Liberal government to power.
- 1859: Smiles' 'Self-Help' published
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| 18 | 1860 | - 1860: Joseph Wilson Swan invented the light bulb, an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament.
- 1860: Gladstone's budget and the Anglo-French Cobden Treaty codifies and extends the principles of free trade
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| 19 | 1861 | - 1861: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis published his deduction that childbirth fever was transmitted on the hands of doctors during their examinations
- 1861: Death of Prince Albert, Prince Consort
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| 20 | 1862 | - 1862: Pasteur published the 'germ theory:': Infection is caused by self-replicating microorganisms, and that attenuated viral cultures granted immunity. These beneficent antigens he named 'vaccines' in honor of Jenner and his vaccinia virus
- 1862: Parliament passes the Limited Liability Act in order to provide vital stimulus to accumulation of capital in shares
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| 21 | 1863 | - 1863: Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Salvation Army is founded
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| 22 | 1865 | - 1865: Lister, using carbolic acid as antiseptic and sterilizing his instrument, proved the efficacy of antiseptic surgery
- 1865: Death of Palmerston. Russell establishes his second Liberal government
- 1865: Lewis Carroll publishes 'Alice's Adventure in Wonderland'
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| 23 | 1866 | - 1866: Gregor Mendel, in "Versuche ?ber Pflantenhybriden," interpreted heredity in terms of a pairing of dominant and/or recessive unit characters; that is, ones that could in practice be treated as indivisible and independent particles
- 1866: Alfred Nobel patented dynamite
- 1866: Russell and Gladstone fail to have their moderate Reform Bill passed in parliament. Derby takes power in his third minority Conservative government
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| 24 | 1867 | - 1867: Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, maintained the value, or exchange relation, of commodities is characterized by its alienation from its use-value, and thus its value as the product of human labor, which the capitalist treats as a variable and against which he accounts his surplus.
- 1867: Derby and Disraeli's Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise to two million. Canada becomes the first independent dominion in the British Empire under the Dominion of Canada Act
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| 25 | 1868 | - 1868: Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time
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| 26 | 1869 | - 1869: George M. Beard distinguished 'neurasthenia,' a nervous disease of men, from hysteria, a women's disease, as, in an earlier time, men's 'hypochondriasis' had been distinguished from women's ' vapeurs.' Subforms of neurasthenia came to be called phobias.
- 1869: The Irish Church is disestablished. The Suez Canal is opened
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| 27 | 1870 | - 1870: Primary education becomes compulsory in Britain through the Forster-Ripon English Elementary Education Act. Parliament also passes the Women's Property Act, extending the rights of married women, and the Irish Land Act
- 1870: First British postcard devised by Anthony Trollope
- 1870: Wheeler introduces toilet paper roll in US
- 1870: Inauguration of London to Calcutta telegraph line, first electronic link between Europe and India
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| 28 | 1871 | - 1871: Trade Unions are legalized
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| 29 | 1872 | - 1872: Secret voting is introduced for elections. Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act
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| 30 | 1873 | - 1873: Gladstone's government resigns after the defeat of their Irish Universities Bill. Disraeli declines to take up office instead
- 1873: Parmalee invents automatic fire sprinklers
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| 31 | 1874 | - 1874: Disraeli becomes Conservative Prime Minister for the second time
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| 32 | 1875 | - 1875: Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal. Agricultural depression increases
- 1875: Parliament passes R.A. Cross's Conservative social reforms
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| 33 | 1876 | - 1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
- 1876: Nikolas August Otto designed the first four-stroke piston engine
- 1876: Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India. The massacre of Christians in Turkish Bulgaria leads to anti-Turkish campaigns in Britain, led by Gladstone
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| 34 | 1877 | - 1877: Confederation of British and Boer states established in South Africa
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| 35 | 1878 | - 1878: The Congress of Berlin is held. Disraeli announces 'peace with honour'
- 1878: Edweard Muybridge photographs horse in motion
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| 36 | 1879 | - 1879: A trade depression emerges in Britain. The Zulu War is fought in South Africa. The British are defeated at Isandhlwana, but are victorious at Ulundi
- 1879: Gladstone's Midlothian campaign denounces imperialism in South Africa and Afghanistan
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| 37 | 1880 | - 1880: Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government
- 1880: The first Anglo-Boer War begins
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| 38 | 1881 | - 1881: Savoy Theatre introduces electric lighting
- 1881: Parliament passes the Irish Land and Coercion Acts
- 1881: Death of Billy the Kid
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| 39 | 1882 | - 1882: Britain occupies Egypt. A triple alliance is established between Germany, Austria and Italy
- 1882: Standard Oil controls 95% of the U.S. oil refining capacity
- 1882: Stillwell invents brown paper bag
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1843 - 1883 (39 years)