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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1726 | - 1726: First circulating library in Britain opens in Edinburgh. Jonathan Swift publishes his 'Gulliver's Travels'
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| 2 | 1727 | - 1727: Death of Sir Isaac Newton and of King George I (in Hanover). The latter is succeeded by his son as King George II
- 1727: The Gentleman's Magazine', first modern magazine, published
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| 3 | 1728 | - 1728: Pierre Fauchard, in 'The Surgeon Dentist', described preventive measures to keep teeth healthy as well as inventing the word 'dentist.'
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| 4 | 1729 | - 1729: Alexander Pope publishes his ' Dunciad'
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| 5 | 1730 | - 1730: A split occurs between Walpole and Townshend
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| 6 | 1732 | - 1732: A royal charter is granted for the founding of Georgia in America
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| 7 | 1733 | - 1733: The 'Excise Crisis' occurs and Walpole is forced to abandon his plans to reorganise the customs and excise
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| 8 | 1736 | - 1736: John Harrison finished building and tested at sea what proved to be the first accurate chronometer for timing longitude
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| 9 | 1737 | - 1737: Death of King George II's wife, Queen Caroline
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| 10 | 1738 | - 1738: John and Charles Wesley start the Methodist movement in Britain
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| 11 | 1739 | - 1739: Britain goes to war with Spain in the 'War of Jenkins' Ear'. The cause: Captain Jenkins' ear was claimed to have been cut off during a Naval Skirmish
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| 12 | 1740 | - 1740: Commencement of the War of Austrian Succession in Europe
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| 13 | 1742 | - 1742: Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington Prime Minister until 1743 (Whig)
- 1742: Beginning with a bull calf from the cow 'Silver' and two cows, 'Pidgeon' and 'Mottle' (inherited from his father's estate), Benjamin Tomkins is credited with founding the Hereford breed.
- 1742: Walpole resigns as Prime Minister
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| 14 | 1743 | - 1743: Henry Pelham Prime Minister until 1754 (Whig)
- 1743: George II leads British troops into battle at Dettingen in Bavaria
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| 15 | 1744 | |
| 16 | 1745 | - 1745: Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland led by 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. There is a Scottish victory at Prestonpans
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| 17 | 1746 | - 1746: The Duke of Cumberland crushes the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden
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| 18 | 1747 | - 1747: Yorkshire pudding mentioned in recipes
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| 19 | 1748 | - 1748: The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle brings the War of Austrian Succession to a close
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| 20 | 1750 | - 1750: The grapefruit was first described by Griffith Hughes as the "forbidden fruit" of Barbados
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| 21 | 1751 | - 1751: Benjamin Franklin published 'Experiments and Observations on Electricity' after several years of experiments done with several friends. In this book Franklin suggested an experiment to prove that lightning is a large-scale electrical discharge, a task which later he took upon himself, using a kite. This led to the invention of the lightning rod.
- 1751: Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His son, Prince George, becomes heir to the throne
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| 22 | 1752 | - 1752: James Lind called attention to the value of fresh fruit in the prevention of scurvy
- 1752: Ren? Antoine Ferchault de R?aumur showed by experiment that gastric juice liquifies meat.
- 1752: Adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in Britain
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| 23 | 1753 | - 1753: Parliament passes the Jewish Naturalization Bill
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| 24 | 1754 | - 1754: The ministry of Newcastle
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| 25 | 1755 | - 1755: Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language published
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| 26 | 1756 | - 1756: Mayonnaise invented to commemorate a victory at the start of the Seven Years War, the successful seige of English-held St. Philip's Castle
- 1756: Britain, allied with Prussia, declares war against France and her allies, Austria and Russia. The Seven Years' War begins
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| 27 | 1757 | - 1757: The Pitt-Newcastle ministry. Robert Clive wins the Battle of Plassey and secures the Indian province of Bengal for Britain. William Pitt becomes Prime Minister
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| 28 | 1759 | - 1759: Wolfe captures Quebec and expels the French from Canada
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| 29 | 1760 | - 1760: Death of King George II. He is succeeded by his grandson as George III
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| 30 | 1761 | - 1761: Laurence Sterne publishes his 'Tristram Shandy'
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| 31 | 1762 | - 1762: John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, 'created' the Sandwich. This Englishman was said to have been fond of gambling and, during a 24 hour gambling streak, he instructed a cook to prepare his food in such a way that it would not interfere with his game. The cook presented him with sliced meat between two pieces of toast. Perfect! This meal required no utensils and could be eaten with one hand, leaving the other free to continue the game.
- 1762: The Earl of Bute is appointed Prime Minister. He becomes very unpopular and employs a bodyguard
- 1762: Acad?mie Francaise recognises term 'millionaire'
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| 32 | 1763 | - 1763: Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years' War. Grenville ministry.
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| 33 | 1764 | - 1764: James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny
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| 34 | 1765 | - 1765: Rockingham ministry. The American Stamp Act raises taxes in the colonies in an attempt to make their defence self-financing
- 1765: Earliest known children's pop-up book
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| 35 | 1766 | - 1766: Chatham ministry. Repeal of the American Stamp Act
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| 36 | 1768 | - 1768: Grafton ministry. The Middlesex Election Crisis occurs
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| 37 | 1769 | - 1769: James Watt patented a new type of steam engine with a separate condensing chamber and an air pump to bring steam into the chamber and equipped it with a simple 'governor' for safety: if the engine started to go too fast, the power would be automatically cut back. He coined the term 'horsepower' and later loaned his name to the unit of power, or work, done per unit of time
- 1769: Captain James Cook's first voyage to explore the Pacific begins
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| 38 | 1770 | - 1770: Lord North begins service as Prime Minister. The Falkland Island Crisis occurs. Edmund Burke publishes his 'Thoughts on the Present Discontents'
- 1770: James Cook documents the location of Australia
- 1770: Gum pencil eraser invented
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| 39 | 1771 | - 1771: The Encyclopedia Britannica is first published
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| 40 | 1773 | - 1773: American colonists protest at the East India Company's monopoly over tea exports to the colonies, at the so-called 'Boston Tea Party'. The World's first cast-iron bridge is constructed over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale
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| 41 | 1774 | - 1774: Franz Anton Mesmer began the psychotherapeutic practive of hypnotism, which he called 'animal magnetism' and conceived it to be an actual fluid. Apparently he had some success with psychosomatic illnesses. Part of his technique seems to have been used earlier by exorcists.
- 1774: Parliament passes the Coercive Acts in retaliation for the 'Boston Tea Party'
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| 42 | 1775 | - 1775: American War of Independence begins when colonists fight British troops at Lexington.
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| 43 | 1776 | - 1776: Adam Smith, in 'The Wealth of Nations', advanced the idea that businesses survive through successful trading in pursuit of their self-interest, and that the resulting equilibrium was not by design.
- 1776: On 4 JUL, the American Congress passes their Declaration of Independence from Britain. Edward Gibbons' publishes his 'Decline and Fall'
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| 44 | 1778 | - 1778: Cook explores Hawaiian Islands. He fails to locate Northwest Passage from Alaskan side and is killed in Hawaii the following year
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| 45 | 1779 | - 1779: The rise of Wyvill's Association Movement
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| 46 | 1780 | - 1780: The Gordon Riots develop from a procession to petition parliament against the Catholic Relief Act
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| 47 | 1781 | - 1781: Frederick William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus by its movement, although at the time he supposed it to be a comet
- 1781: The Americans obtain a great victory of British troops at the surrender of Yorktown
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| 48 | 1782 | - 1782: End of Lord North's time as Prime Minister. He is succeeded by Rockingham in his second ministry. Ireland obtains short-lived parliament
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| 49 | 1783 | - 1783: William Bentinck, Duke of Portland Prime minister (Whig)
- 1783: Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques ?tienne Montgolfier invented the first practical hot air balloon.
- 1783: Shelburne's ministry, followed by that of William Pitt the Younger. Britain recognises American independence at the Peace of Versailles. Fox-North coalition established
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| 50 | 1784 | - 1784: Parliament passes the East India Act
- 1784: First edition of 'The Times' newspaper
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| 51 | 1785 | - 1785: Pitt's motion for Parliamentary Reform is defeated
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| 52 | 1786 | - 1786: The Eden commercial treaty with France is drawn up
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| 53 | 1788 | - 1788: George III suffers his first attack of 'madness' (caused by porphyria)
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| 54 | 1789 | - 1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution
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| 55 | 1790 | - 1790: Edmund Burke publishes his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France'
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| 56 | 1791 | - 1791: The 'Celerifere', an early version of the bicycle, was built around by Comte Mede de Sivrac. It was basically a scooter with a high seat
- 1791: James Boswell publishes his 'Life of Johnson' an Thomas Paine, his 'Rights of Man'
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| 57 | 1792 | - 1792: Volta discovered he could arrange metals in a series in such a way that chemical energy is converted into electrical energy; that is, two dissimilar metals are submerged in an electrolyte and connected by an circuit and thereby exchange electrons. By 1800, he had invented the so-called voltaic cell, a pile of such metals "consisting of pairs of silver and zinc disks separated by pieces of moist cardboard"
- 1792: Coal gas is used for lighting for the first time. Mary Wollstonecraft publishes her 'Vindication of the Rights of Women'
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| 58 | 1793 | - 1793: Outbreak of War between Britain and France. The voluntary Board of Agriculture is set up. Commercial depression throughout Britain
- 1793: Speculative 'Canal Bubble' in UK bursts
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| 59 | 1794 | - 1794: Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather, proposed that "warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament...possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering those improvements by generation to its posterity."
- 1794: Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin
- 1794: Metric system introduced in France
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| 60 | 1795 | - 1795: The 'Speenhamland' system of outdoor relief is adopted, making wages up to equal the cost of subsistence
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| 61 | 1796 | - 1796: Edward Jenner investigated the folk tale that milk maids were immune to small pox, the virus variola major, and in a brief series of experiments confirmed that exposure to cow pox, the virus vaccinia, rendered immunity
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| 62 | 1798 | - 1798: Thomas Robert Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population, contended that population increases by a geometric ratio whereas the means of subsistence increase by an arithmetic ratio.
- 1798: Introduction of a tax of ten percent on incomes over ?200.
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| 63 | 1799 | - 1799: Trade Unions are suppressed. Napoleon is appointed First Consul in France
- 1799: Three-year commercial boom in Britain begins
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| 64 | 1800 | - 1800: Act of Union with Ireland unites Parliaments of England and Ireland
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| 65 | 1801 | - 1801: Close of Pitt the Younger's Ministry. The first British Census is undertaken
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| 66 | 1802 | - 1802: Peace with France is established. Peel introduces the first factory legislation
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| 67 | 1803 | - 1803: Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. Britain declares war on France. Parliament passes the General Enclosure Act, simplifying the process of enclosing common land
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| 68 | 1805 | - 1805: Ludolf Christian Treviranus said that spermatozoa were analogous to pollen
- 1805: Nelson destroys the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar, but is killed in the process
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| 69 | 1806 | - 1806: Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet isolated the first amino acid, 'asparagine,' from asparagus.
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| 70 | 1807 | - 1807: William Bentinck, Duke of Portland Prime Minister to 1809 (Whig)
- 1807: Robert Fulton ushered in the era of self-propelled ships with his construction of a commercially viable paddle-wheel steamboat
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| 71 | 1808 | - 1808: Peninsular War to drive the French out of Spain (until 1814)
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| 72 | 1809 | - 1809: Two-year commercial boom in Britain
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| 73 | 1810 | - 1810: Final illness of George III begins
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| 74 | 1811 | - 1811: Depression caused by Orders of Council. There are Luddite disturbances in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. The King's illness leads to his son, the Prince of Wales, becoming Regent
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| 75 | 1812 | - 1812: Georges Cuvier, in 'Discours sur les r?volutions de la surface du globe', maintained the stratigraphic succession proved that fossils occur in the chronological order of creation: fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
- 1812: Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated in the House of Commons by a disgruntled bankrupt
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| 76 | 1813 | - 1813: Canned food was invented for the British Navy by Peter Durand. The cans were made of solid iron and usually weighed more than the food inside them
- 1813: Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' is published. The monopolies of the East India Company are abolished
- 1813: Can opener invented
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| 77 | 1815 | - 1815: The defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo marks the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Peace is established in Europe at the Congress of Vienna. The Corn Laws are passed by Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports
- 1815: Start of two-year commercial boom in Britain
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| 78 | 1817 | - 1817: Economic slimp in Britain leads to the 'Blanketeers' March' and other disturbances
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| 79 | 1818 | - 1818: Death of the King's wife, Queen Caroline. Mary Shelley's publishes her 'Frankenstein'
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| 80 | 1819 | - 1819: Troops intervene at a mass political reform meeting in Manchester, killing and wounding four hundred people at the 'Peterloo Massacre'
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| 81 | 1820 | - 1820: Death of the blind and deranged King George III. He is succeeded by his son, the Prince Regent, who becomes King George IV. A radical plot to murder the Cabinet, known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, fails. Trial of Queen Caroline, in which George IV attempts to divorce her for adultery
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| 82 | 1821 | - 1821: Jean Fran?ois Champollion, employing the Rosetta Stone, established the principles for deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.
- 1821: Queen Caroline is excluded from the coronation
- 1821: Start of two years of famine in Ireland
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| 83 | 1822 | - 1822: First prototype Espresso machine (France)
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| 84 | 1823 | - 1823: The Royal Academy of Music is established in London. The British Museum is extended and extensively rebuilt to house an expanding collection
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| 85 | 1824 | - 1824: The National Gallery is established. Commercial boom in Britain
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| 86 | 1825 | - 1825: Nash reconstructs Buckingham Palace. The World's first railway service, the Stockton and Darlington Railway opens. Trade Unions are legalized. Commercial depression in Britain
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| 87 | 1826 | - 1826: One of the first print references to fondue written by Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in his 'Physiologie du Gout'
- 1826: French physicist Joseph Niepce makes the first known photograph, "View from a Window at Gras," via a "heliograph" process on a metal plate.
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| 88 | 1828 | - 1828: The Duke of Wellington becomes British Prime Minister
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| 89 | 1829 | - 1829: The Metropolitan Police Force is set up by Robert Peel. Parliament passes the Catholic Relief Act, ending most restrictions on Catholic Civil Rights. They are allowed to own property and run for public office, including parliament
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| 90 | 1830 | - 1830: Death of King George IV at Windsor. He is succeeded by his brother, William IV. Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Rise of the Whigs, under Grey
- 1830: First major cholera epidemic in Britain starts and lasts two years.
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| 91 | 1831 | - 1831: Faraday , in the first in a series of Experimental Researches in Electricity, discovered the means of producing electricity from magnetism, i.e., electromagnetic induction, the generation of an electric field by a changing magnetic field. This is the principle of the dynamo
- 1831: Swing' Riots in rural areas against the mechanization of agricultural activities. The new London Bridge is opened over the River Thames
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| 92 | 1832 | - 1832: The first or great Reform Act is passed. This climax of a period of political reform extends the vote to a further 500,000 people and redistributes Parliamentary seats on a more equitable basis
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| 93 | 1833 | - 1833: Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Empire. Parliament passes the Factory Act, prohibiting children aged less than nine from working in factories, and reducing the working hours of women and older children. Start of the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church
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| 94 | 1834 | - 1834: Charles Babbage designed a programmable mechanical calculating machine, or 'analytical engine,' that could carry out arithmetic operations specified on punch cards and choose the sequence of operations. Although the design was never built, Augusta Ada Byron wrote programs to demonstrate its potential power.
- 1834: Parliament passes the Poor Law Act, establishing workhouses for the poor. Robert Owen founds the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union. The government acts against 'illegal oaths' in such unionism, rsulting in the Tolpuddle Martyrs being transported to Australia. Fire destroys the Palace of Westminster
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| 95 | 1835 | - 1835: Parliament passes the Municipal Reform Act, requiring members of town councils to be elected by ratepayers and councils to publish their financial accounts
- 1835: Commercial boom with 'little' railway mania across Britain starts and continues into 1836
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| 96 | 1837 | - 1837: Death of King William IV at Windsor. He is succeeded by his niece, Victoria. Births, deaths and marriages must be registered by law. Charles Dickens publishes 'Oliver Twist,' drawing attention to Britain's poor.
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| 97 | 1838 | - 1838: The Anti-Corn Law League is established. Publication of the People's Charter. The start of Chartism
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| 98 | 1839 | - 1839: Chartist Riots take place
- 1839: First use of 'OK' in print? (in Boston Morning Post)
- 1839: Fox Talbot produces photographs from negatives
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| 99 | 1840 | - 1840: Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The penny post is instituted
- 1840: There are reckoned to be 107 accountants in London
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| 100 | 1841 | - 1841: The first British Census recording the names of the populace is undertaken. The Tories come to power. Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister
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| 101 | 1842 | - 1842: First Christmas card
- 1842: First UK public telegraph lines, from Paddington to Slough and Gosport to London
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| 102 | 1843 | - 1843: Alexander Bain (1818-1903) invented an early fax machine
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| 103 | 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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| 104 | 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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| 105 | 1846 | - 1846: End of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry. Whigs come to Power. Repeal of the Corn Laws
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| 106 | 1847 | - 1847: Flourens discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform
- 1847: Levi Strauss invents denim jeans
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| 107 | 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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| 108 | 1849 | - 1849: Howe patents the safety-pin
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| 109 | 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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| 110 | 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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| 111 | 1852 | - 1852: Death of the Duke of Wellington. Derby's first minority Conservative government. Aberdeen's coalition government is established
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| 112 | 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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| 113 | 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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| 114 | 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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| 115 | 1856 | - 1856: Crimean War comes to an end. The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery
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| 116 | 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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| 117 | 1858 | - 1858: Derby establishes his second minority government. Parliament passes the India Act
- 1858: Eraser fitted to end of pencil
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| 118 | 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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| 119 | 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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| 120 | 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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| 121 | 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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| 122 | 1863 | - 1863: Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Salvation Army is founded
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| 123 | 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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| 124 | 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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| 125 | 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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| 126 | 1868 | - 1868: Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time
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| 127 | 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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| 128 | 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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| 129 | 1871 | - 1871: Trade Unions are legalized
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| 130 | 1872 | - 1872: Secret voting is introduced for elections. Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act
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| 131 | 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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| 132 | 1874 | - 1874: Disraeli becomes Conservative Prime Minister for the second time
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| 133 | 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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| 134 | 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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| 135 | 1877 | - 1877: Confederation of British and Boer states established in South Africa
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| 136 | 1878 | - 1878: The Congress of Berlin is held. Disraeli announces 'peace with honour'
- 1878: Edweard Muybridge photographs horse in motion
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| 137 | 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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| 138 | 1880 | - 1880: Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government
- 1880: The first Anglo-Boer War begins
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| 139 | 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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| 140 | 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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| 141 | 1884 | - 1884: Freud published a paper in which he found cocaine, an alkaloid in coca, effective against fatigue and neurasthenia.
- 1884: Hilaire de Chardonnet invented the first artificial textile, which was made from cellulose. It was later named rayon
- 1884: Parliament passes the third Reform Act which further extends the franchise
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| 142 | 1885 | - 1885: Death of General Gordon at Khartoum. Burma is annexed. Salisbury succeeds Gladstone with his first minority Conservative government. Parliament passes the Redistribution Act
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| 143 | 1886 | - 1886: Gladstone's third Liberal government fails to pass its first Irish Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister. Split in the Liberal Party. Salisbury establishes his second Conservative-Liberal-Unionist government. The Royal Niger Company is chartered. Gold is discovered in the Transvaal
- 1886: Statue of Liberty erected in New York Harbour
- 1886: Coca-Cola syrup invented
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| 144 | 1887 | - 1887: Emile Berliner patents the gramophone
- 1887: Queen Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee. The Independent Labour Party is founded. The British East Africa Company is chartered
- 1887: UK telegraph companies control 107,000 miles of submarine cable
- 1887: There are estimated to be 5,400 cash registers in US (increases to 16,900 in 1890)
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| 145 | 1888 | - 1888: Celluloid photographic film introduced
- 1888: The County Councils' Act establishes representative county based authorities
- 1888: Kodak box camera
- 1888: Coin-operated public telephone
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| 146 | 1889 | - 1889: London Dockers' Strike. The British South Africa Company is chartered
- 1889: The Eiffel Tower, designed by French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, is completed for the Paris Exposition.
- 1889: First Official Secrets Act in UK
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| 147 | 1892 | - 1892: Leon Bouly invents cinematographic film camera
- 1892: Gladstone forms his fourth Liberal government
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| 148 | 1893 | - 1893: Whitcomb L. Judson invented the zip to help a friend with a stiff back who could not bend over to do up his shoes
- 1893: Second Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass the House of Lords
- 1893: New Zealand becomes the first nation to grant women the right to vote
- 1893: Car number plates introduced in France
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| 149 | 1894 | - 1894: Rosebery takes power with his minority Liberal government
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| 150 | 1895 | - 1895: Oscar Wilde jailed
- 1895: Wilhelm Conrad R?ntgen, using a Crookes' tube, observed a new form of penetrating radiation, which he named X-rays
- 1895: Guglielmo Marconi sent longwave wireless telegraphic, or radio, signals over a distance of more than a mile
- 1895: Salisbury forms his third Unionist ministry
- 1895: Kellogg's Corn Flakes go on sale
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| 151 | 1896 | - 1896: Freud suggested analyzing childhood conflicts in the study of neuroses. He also devised a psychoanalytic technique called 'free association' which allows emotionally-charged, repressed material to be consciously recognized
- 1896: The British conquest of the Sudan begins
- 1896: Lightner Witmer establishes at the University of Pennsylvania a clinic of psychology, the first psychological clinic in America and perhaps in the world
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| 152 | 1897 | - 1897: Queen Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee
- 1897: Telephone penetration in US is 7 per 1,000 people
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| 153 | 1898 | - 1898: Christopher Latham Sholes patented the typewriter. His QWERTY keyboard is still with us today.
- 1898: British rule over Sudan fully established. German Naval expansion begins
- 1898: Campbell's soups first appear with red and white labels, colors suggested by Cornell University's football uniforms.
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| 154 | 1899 | - 1899: British disasters in South Africa
- 1899: Boer War begins in South Africa and lasts three years
|
| 155 | 1900 | - 1900: Salisbury wins the 'Khaki' election. The Labour Representation Committee is formed. Parliament passes the Commonwealth of Australia Act
- 1900: Max Planck proposes quantum theory
- 1900: There are reckoned to be 6,000 accountants in England
- 1900: Australia Becomes a Commonwealth
- 1900: Boxer Rebellion in China
- 1900: Italy's King Assassinated
- 1900: Kodak Introduces $1 Brownie Cameras
- 1900: Max Planck Formulates Quantum Theory
- 1900: Sigmund Freud Publishes The Interpretation of Dreams
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| 156 | 1901 | - 1901: Willis H. Carrier invented the industrial air conditioner
- 1901: Vacuum Cleaner invented by Hubert Cecil Booth
- 1901: Death of Queen Victoria. She is succeeded by her son, Prince Albert, as King Edward VII
- 1901: Marconi sends wireless message from Cornwall to Newfoundland
- 1901: First Nobel Prizes Awarded
- 1901: First Trans-Atlantic Radio Signal
- 1901: U.S. President McKinley Assassinated
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| 157 | 1902 | - 1902: Invention of the Teddy Bear
- 1902: Boer War Ends
- 1902: Mount Pel?e Erupts
- 1902: The Teddy Bear is Introduced
|
| 158 | 1903 | - 1903: Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright achieved flight in a manned, gasoline power-driven, heavier-than-air flying machine.
- 1903: First Flight at Kitty Hawk
- 1903: First Message to Travel Around the World
- 1903: First Silent Movie, The Great Train Robbery
- 1903: Plague in India
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| 159 | 1904 | - 1904: First telephone answering machine
- 1904: Beatrix Potter's 'The Tale of Benjamin Bunny' is published
- 1904: First Popular American Film
- 1904: Ground Broken on Panama Canal
- 1904: New York City Subway Opens
- 1904: Russo-Japanese War Begins
- 1904: Trans-Siberian Railway Completed
|
| 160 | 1905 | - 1905: Einstein evolved the Special Theory of relativity.
- 1905: Aliens Act in Britain tries to control immigration
- 1905: Bloody Sunday - Russian Revolution of 1905
- 1905: Einstein Proposes His Theory of Relativity
- 1905: Freud Publishes His Theory of Sexuality
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| 161 | 1906 | - 1906: Finland First European Country to Give Women the Right to Vote
- 1906: Kellogg's Starts Selling Corn Flakes
- 1906: San Francisco Earthquake
- 1906: Upton Sinclair Writes The Jungle
|
| 162 | 1907 | - 1907: Electric washing machine - The Thor - on sale
- 1907: Ten Rules of War Established at the Second Hague Peace Conference
- 1907: First Electric Washing Machine
- 1907: Picasso Introduces Cubism
- 1907: Typhoid Mary Captured for the First Time
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| 163 | 1908 | - 1908: Henry Ford created the Model T automobile
- 1908: Electric iron and toaster patented
- 1908: Earthquake in Italy Kills 150,000
- 1908: Ford Introduces the Model-T
- 1908: Three Year-Old Pu Yi Becomes Emperor of China
- 1908: Turks Revolt in the Ottoman Empire
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| 164 | 1909 | - 1909: French Engineer Louis Bleriot is first to cross the English Channel in an airplane
- 1909: Pianos reach maximum market penetration in UK households at one per ten people
- 1909: 800 million postcards sold in England
- 1909: Japan's Prince Ito is Assassinated
- 1909: Plastic Is Invented
- 1909: Robert Peary Becomes the First to Reach the North Pole
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| 165 | 1910 | - 1910: Georges Claude discovered that electricity conducted through a tube of the rare inert gas, neon, gives a bright red glow and that other gases gave off other colors, e.g., argon gives blue, helium gives yellow and white, etc.
- 1910: First live opera broadcast
- 1910: Halley's Comet Makes an Appearance
- 1910: The Tango Catches On
|
| 166 | 1911 | - 1911: British National Insurance Act lays foundation for health and unemployment insurance
- 1911: The Chinese Revolution
- 1911: Ernest Rutherford Discovers the Structure of an Atom
- 1911: Greenwich Mean Time Adopted
- 1911: The Incan City of Machu Picchu Discovered
- 1911: Mona Lisa Is Stolen
- 1911: Roald Amundsen Reaches the South Pole
- 1911: Standard Oil Company Broken Up
- 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Catches on Fire
|
| 167 | 1912 | - 1912: The Sinking of the Titanic 1,515 people lose their lives.
- 1912: Parachutes Invented
- 1912: Piltdown Man, the 'Missing Link,' Discovered (Fraud)
- 1912: SOS Accepted as Universal Distress Signal
- 1912: The Titanic Sinks
|
| 168 | 1913 | - 1913: Leo Baekeland invented a plastic laminate, known as Bakelite, and later as 'formica'.
- 1913: First assembly line introduced in Ford automobile factory
- 1913: The "Armory Show," an international display of some 1600 works of modern art, and one of the more important U.S. art exhibitions ever held, opens at the 69th-regiment armory in New York City; it arouses public curiosity, generates sensational news coverage, and helps change the direction of American art
- 1913: First Crossword Puzzle
- 1913: Henry Ford Creates Assembly Line
- 1913: Personal Income Tax Introduced in U.S.
|
| 169 | 1914 | - 1914: First World War starts
- 1914: Archduke Ferdinand Assassinated
- 1914: Battle of the Marne
- 1914: Charlie Chaplin First Appeared as the Little Tramp
- 1914: First Traffic Light
- 1914: Panama Canal Officially Opened
- 1914: World War I Begins
|
| 170 | 1915 | - 1915: Armenian Genocide
- 1915: D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation Released
- 1915: Germans Use Poison Gas as a Weapon
- 1915: Lusitania Sunk by German U-Boat
- 1915: Second Battle of Ypres
|
| 171 | 1916 | - 1916: Navy employs animal trainer 'Captain' Joseph Woodward's music hall sea lions for U-boat sabotage.
- 1916: Coca-Cola adopts a distinctive bottle which identifies the company internationally
- 1916: Battle of the Somme
- 1916: Battle of Verdun
- 1916: Easter Rising in Ireland
- 1916: First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens in U.S.
|
| 172 | 1917 | - 1917: Bolshevik revolution in Russia installs a new government headed by V.I. Lennin
- 1917: French artist Marcel Duchamp submits a porcelain urinal, signed "R. Mutt" and titled "Fountain," to the New York Independents Exhibition; it is rejected.
- 1917: First Pulitzer Prizes Awarded
- 1917: Mata Hari Executed for Being a Spy
- 1917: Russian Revolution
- 1917: U.S. Enters World War I
|
| 173 | 1918 | - 1918: Influenza Epidemic
- 1918: Russian Czar Nicholas II and His Family are Killed
|
| 174 | 1919 | - 1919: Eddington and Frank W. Dyson measured the bending of starlight by the gravitational pull of the sun, thus confirming Einstein's general theory of relativity
- 1919: Prohibition Begins in the U.S.
- 1919: Treaty of Versailles Ends World War I
|
| 175 | 1920 | - 1920: Bubonic Plague in India
- 1920: League of Nations Established
|
| 176 | 1921 | - 1921: Stage debut of John Gielgud
- 1921: Extreme Inflation in Germany
- 1921: Irish Free State Proclaimed
- 1921: Lie Detector Invented
|
| 177 | 1922 | - 1922: BBC launched as limited company
- 1922: Kemal Atat?rk Founds Modern Turkey
- 1922: Tomb of King Tut Discovered
- 1922: Michael Collins Killed in Ambush
- 1922: Mussolini Marches on Rome
- 1922: The Reader's Digest Published
|
| 178 | 1923 | - 1923: Electrolux produced the first electric refrigerator
- 1923: Kodak introduces home movie equipment
- 1923: Charleston Dance Becomes Popular
- 1923: Hitler Jailed After Failed Coup
- 1923: Ruhr Occupied by French and Belgian Forces
- 1923: Talking Movies Invented
- 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal
|
| 179 | 1924 | - 1924: First Olympic Winter Games
- 1924: Leopold and Loeb Murder a Neighbor Out of Boredom
- 1924: V.I. Lenin Dies
|
| 180 | 1925 | - 1925: Flapper Dresses in Style
- 1925: Hitler Publishes 'Mein Kampf'
|
| 181 | 1926 | - 1926: General Strike in UK
- 1926: The first automatic traffic light was installed in Wolverhampton, England. It remained in service until 1968
- 1926: A.A. Milne Publishes Winnie-the-Pooh
- 1926: Houdini Dies After Being Punched
- 1926: Robert Goddard Fires His First Liquid-Fuel Rocket
- 1926: A Woman Swims the English Channel
|
| 182 | 1927 | - 1927: The Jazz Singer - first film talking movie released
- 1927: Philo Farnsworth and John Logie Baird demonstrate television
- 1927: Babe Ruth Makes Home-Run Record
- 1927: BBC Founded
- 1927: The First Talking Movie, The Jazz Singer
- 1927: Lindbergh Flies Solo Across the Atlantic
|
| 183 | 1928 | - 1928: George Eastman devises a process for color photography; it leads to the first successful three-color roll film available to amateur photographers when it appears in 1935 as Kodachrome (for slides) and as Kodacolor (for prints) in 1942.
- 1928: First Mickey Mouse cartoon
- 1928: Bubble Gum Invented
- 1928: First 'Mickey Mouse' Cartoon
- 1928: First Oxford English Dictionary Published
- 1928: Kellogg-Briand Treaty Outlaws War
- 1928: Penicillin Discovered
|
| 184 | 1929 | - 1929: First UK television broadcast
- 1929: Frank Whittle, combining the concepts of rocket propulsion and gas turbines, invented jet propulsion. Independently, Hans von Ohain put together the same combination in 1933
- 1929: Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin
- 1929: Byrd and Bennett Fly Over South Pole
- 1929: Car Radio Invented
- 1929: First Academy Awards
- 1929: New York Stock Market Crashes
- 1929: St. Valentine's Day Massacre
|
| 185 | 1930 | - 1930: Gandhi's Salt March
- 1930: Pluto Discovered
- 1930: Sliced Bread Available
- 1930: Stalin Begins Collectivizing Agriculture in the U.S.S.R.
|
| 186 | 1931 | - 1931: Al Capone Imprisoned for Income Tax Evasion
- 1931: Auguste Piccard Reaches Stratosphere
- 1931: Christ Monument Built on Rio de Janeiro Hilltop
- 1931: Empire State Building Completed
- 1931: U.S. Officially Gets National Anthem
|
| 187 | 1932 | - 1932: Air Conditioning Invented
- 1932: Amelia Earhardt First Woman to Fly Solo Across the Atlantic
- 1932: Scientists Split the Atom
- 1932: Zippo Lighters Introduced
|
| 188 | 1933 | - 1933: First Mars bar
- 1933: Singing telegrams introduced
- 1933: Adolf Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany
- 1933: FDR Launches New Deal
- 1933: First Nazi Concentration Camp Established
- 1933: Loch Ness Monster First Spotted
- 1933: Prohibition Ends in the U.S.
- 1933: Wiley Post Flies Around the World in 8 1/2 Days
|
| 189 | 1934 | - 1934: Konrad Zuse built a series of computers, Z1 through Z4, utilizing binary arithmetic and stored programs. Along the way he invented the first programming language and began to analyze methods by which a computer could play chess
- 1934: The first comic books appear on newsstands, beginning in the United States.
- 1934: Bonnie and Clyde Killed by Police
- 1934: Cheeseburger Created
- 1934: The Dust Bowl
- 1934: Mao Zedong Begins the Long March
- 1934: Parker Brothers Sells the Game 'Monopoly'
|
| 190 | 1935 | - 1935: First 'Kit Kat' sold in UK
- 1935: Alcoholics Anonymous Founded
- 1935: Germany Issues the Anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws
- 1935: John Maynard Keynes Suggests New Economic Theory
|
| 191 | 1936 | - 1936: BBC starts regular TV broadcasts
- 1936: Carnegie Publishes 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'
- 1936: King Edward VIII Abdicates
- 1936: Nazi Olympics in Berlin
- 1936: Spanish Civil War Begins
|
| 192 | 1937 | - 1937: German planes, aiding insurgents in the Spanish Civil War, bomb the historic Basque town of Guernica in Northern Spain, killing women and children and inflaming world opinion against facism.
- 1937: Hindenburg airship crash broadcast coast to coast in US
- 1937: Amelia Earhart Vanishes
- 1937: Golden Gate Bridge Opened
- 1937: The Hindenberg Disaster
- 1937: Japan Invades China
|
| 193 | 1938 | - 1938: UK's first weekly radio comedy series, Band Wagon
- 1938: Biro brothers invent ballpoint pen
- 1938: Broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds' Causes Panic
- 1938: Chamberlain Announces 'Peace in Our Time'
- 1938: Extinct Fish Found
- 1938: Hitler Annexes Austria
- 1938: The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht)
|
| 194 | 1939 | - 1939: Second World War starts
- 1939: First Commercial Flight Over the Atlantic
- 1939: German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact Signed
- 1939: Helicopter Invented
- 1939: Refugees on the St. Louis Refused Entry Everywhere
- 1939: World War II Begins
|
| 195 | 1940 | - 1940: London Blitz
- 1940: Igor Sikorsky invented the heliocopter
- 1940: Disney's 'Fantasia'
- 1940: Battle of Britain
- 1940: Leon Trotsky Assassinated
- 1940: Nylons on the Market
- 1940: Stone Age Cave Paintings Found in France
|
| 196 | 1941 | - 1941: Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
- 1941: Jeep Invented
- 1941: Manhattan Project Begins
- 1941: Mount Rushmore Completed
- 1941: Nazi Rudolf Hess Flies to Britain on a Peace Mission
- 1941: Siege of Leningrad
|
| 197 | 1942 | - 1942: Battle of Midway
- 1942: Battle of Stalingrad
- 1942: Japanese-Americans Held in Camps
- 1942: Nazis Raze Town in Retaliation for Reinhard Heydrich's Death
- 1942: T-shirt Introduced
|
| 198 | 1943 | - 1943: Autism identified
- 1943: French Resistance Leader Jean Moulin Killed
- 1943: Italy Joins the Allies
- 1943: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
|
| 199 | 1944 | - 1944: Ballpoint Pens Go On Sale
- 1944: D-Day
- 1944: First German V1 and V2 Rockets Fired
- 1944: Hitler Escapes Assassination Attempt
|
| 200 | 1945 | - 1945: Second World War ends
- 1945: The Atomic Age begins with atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II
- 1945: Allied troops liberate Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau (January 26), Buchenwald (April 11), and Dachau (April 24), providing the world with the first photographic evidence of the horrific atrocities committed there
- 1945: First Computer Built
- 1945: Germans Surrender
- 1945: Hitler Commits Suicide
- 1945: Microwave Oven Invented
- 1945: United Nations Founded
- 1945: U.S. Drops Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
|
| 201 | 1946 | - 1946: ENIAC computer makes 5,000 additions in one second
- 1946: Bikinis Introduced
- 1946: Dr. Spock Publishes 'The Common Book of Baby and Child Care'
- 1946: Juan Per?n Becomes President of Argentina
- 1946: Nuremberg Trials
- 1946: Winston Churchill Gives His 'Iron Curtain' Speech
|
| 202 | 1947 | - 1947: Invention of transistor
- 1947: Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier
- 1947: Dead Sea Scrolls Discovered
- 1947: Jewish Refugees Aboard the Exodus Turned Back by British
- 1947: Marshall Plan
- 1947: Polaroid Cameras Invented
|
| 203 | 1948 | - 1948: Life magazine makes American painter Jackson Pollock an overnight celebrity by devoting a three-page spread with color photographs to him and his paintings under the headline, "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?"; Abstract Expressionism becomes a subject of widespread popular ridicule.
- 1948: Berlin Airlift
- 1948: Berlin Airlift
- 1948: Big Bang Theory Formulated
- 1948: Gandhi Assassinated
- 1948: Policy of Apartheid Begun
- 1948: State of Israel Founded
|
| 204 | 1949 | - 1949: Mao proclaims Peoples Republic of China
- 1949: China Becomes Communist
- 1949: First Non-Stop Flight Around the World
- 1949: George Orwell Publishes Nineteen Eight-Four
- 1949: NATO Established
- 1949: Soviet Union Has Atomic Bomb
|
| 205 | 1950 | - 1950: UK's longest running soap, The Archers, first airs on BBC Midlands Home Service
- 1950: First Modern Credit Card Introduced
- 1950: First Organ Transplant
- 1950: First Peanuts Cartoon Strip
- 1950: Korean War Begins
- 1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt
- 1950: U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb
- 26 May 1950: 26 MAY: UK drivers cheer end of fuel rations
Long queues have appeared at garages this evening and motorists have torn their ration books into confetti after the government announced an end to petrol rationing. The Minister of Fuel, Noel Baker, told the House of Commons rationing would be abolished because two American companies had agreed a deal to supply oil in return for buying British goods. "This is indeed VP [Victory for Petrol] day for the motor users' campaign," said a spokesman for three motoring organisations - the RAC, AA and Royal Scottish Automobile Club. "The effect on the industrial, commercial and community life will be electric. Ration books now become as obsolete as the man with the red flag."
|
| 206 | 1951 | - 1951: The word 'brainwashing' is coined
- 1951: Color TV Introduced
- 1951: South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race
- 1951: Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
- 1951: Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain
|
| 207 | 1952 | - 1952: The Mousetrap opens Nov 25
- 1952: Car Seat Belts Introduced
- 1952: Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship
- 1952: Polio Vaccine Created
- 1952: Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25
|
| 208 | 1953 | - 1953: Waiting for Godot debuts in Paris
- 1953: DNA Discovered
- 1953: Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest
- 1953: Joseph Stalin Dies
- 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed for Espionage
|
| 209 | 1954 | - 1954: Raymond Kroc buys McDonald's franchise rights and begins the global proliferation of golden arches.
- 1954: Britain Sponsors an Expedition to Search for the Abominable Snowman
- 1954: First Atomic Submarine Launched
- 1954: Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer
- 1954: Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
- 1954: Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
|
| 210 | 1955 | - 1955: ITV formed
- 1955: Disneyland Opens
- 1955: James Dean Dies in Car Accident
- 1955: McDonald's Corporation Founded
- 1955: Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus
- 1955: Warsaw Pact Signed
|
| 211 | 1956 | - 1956: Eurovision Song Contest starts
- 1956: Elvis Gyrates on Ed Sullivan's Show
- 1956: Grace Kelly Marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco
- 1956: Hungarian Revolution
- 1956: Khrushchev Denounces Stalin
- 1956: Suez Crisis
- 1956: T.V. Remote Control Invented
- 1956: Velcro Introduced
|
| 212 | 1957 | - 1957: The Space Age begins as the Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1 - the first satellite
- 1957: Dr. Seuss Publishes 'The Cat in the Hat'
- 1957: European Economic Community Established
- 1957: Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age
- 1957: Laika Becomes the First Living Animal to Orbit Space
|
| 213 | 1958 | - 1958: UNIMATE is first industrial robot
- 1958: Boris Pasternak Refuses Nobel Prize
- 1958: Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the 'Great Leap Forward'
- 1958: Hope Diamond is Donated to the Smithsonian
- 1958: Hula Hoops Become Popular
- 1958: Lego Toy Bricks First Introduced
- 1958: NASA Founded
|
| 214 | 1959 | - 1959: Beyond the Fringe' debuts in Edinburgh
- 1959: Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
- 1959: International Treaty Makes Antarctica Scientific Preserve
- 1959: Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev
- 1959: The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway
- 1959: U.S. Quiz Shows Found to be Fixed
|
| 215 | 1960 | - 1960: Launch of 'Coronation Street'
- 1960: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho Released
- 1960: Brazil's Capital Moves to Brand New City
- 1960: Lasers Invented
|
| 216 | 1961 | - 1961: Adolf Eichmann on Trial for Role in Holocaust
- 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion
- 1961: Berlin Wall Built
- 1961: Peace Corps Founded
- 1961: Soviets Launch First Man in Space
|
| 217 | 1962 | - 1962: Movie Actress Marilyn Monroe dies of an overdose of sleeping pills.
- 1962: Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell's Soup Can
- 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
- 1962: First Person Killed Trying to Cross the Berlin Wall
- 1962: Marilyn Monroe Found Dead
- 1962: Rachel Carson Publishes 'Silent Spring'
|
| 218 | 1963 | - 1963: U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
- 1963: Betty Friedan Publishes 'The Feminine Mystique'
- 1963: JFK Assassinated
- 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His 'I Have a Dream' Speech
|
| 219 | 1964 | - 1964: Beatles Become Popular in U.S.
- 1964: Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
- 1964: Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
- 1964: Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure
- 1964: Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison
|
| 220 | 1965 | - 1965: The United States begins air raids in Vietnam, committing 190,000 U.S. troops there by year's end.
- 1965: Cigarette ads banned on UK television
- 1965: Japan's Bullet Train Opens
- 1965: Los Angeles Riots
- 1965: U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
|
| 221 | 1966 | - 1966: Private theatre clubs lose immunity from censorship
- 1966: World Cup won by England at Wembley (4-2 in extra time v West Germany)
- 1966: Aberfan disaster - slag heap slip kills 144, incl. 116 children
- 1966: Black Panther Party Established
- 1966: Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution
- 1966: Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
- 1966: Star Trek T.V. Series Airs
|
| 222 | 1967 | - 1967: Three US astronauts killed in fire during launch pad test
- 1967: First colour TV in Britain
- 1967: First human heart transplant in South Africa by Christiaan Barnard
- 1967: Che Guevara Killed
- 1967: First Heart Transplant
- 1967: Six-Day War in the Middle East
- 1967: Stalin's Daughter Defects
- 1967: Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch
|
| 223 | 1968 | - 1968: Student riots in Paris
- 1968: Severe flooding in England
- 1968: Pope encyclical condemns all artificial forms of birth control
- 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
- 1968: Prague Spring
- 1968: Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
- 1968: Tet Offensive
|
| 224 | 1969 | - 1969: John Lennon returns OBE due to government's support of Vietnam War
- 1969: America lands man on the Moon
- 1969: Voting age lowered from 21 to 18 in UK
- 1969: ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
- 1969: Charles Manson and 'Family' Arrested
- 1969: Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
- 1969: Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
- 1969: Yasser Arafat Becomes Leader of the PLO
|
| 225 | 1970 | - 1970: Damages awarded to Thalidomide victims
- 1970: American Soldiers Accused of Murdering Entire Town of Vietnamese Civilians
- 1970: Aswan High Dam Completed
- 1970: Beatles Break Up
- 1970: Computer Floppy Disks Introduced
- 1970: Palestinian Group Hijacks Five Planes
- 1970: Protesting Students at Kent State Shot
|
| 226 | 1971 | - 1971: Intel builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip"
- 1971: Decimalisation of coinage in Britain
- 1971: Bomb explodes in London's Post Office tower
- 1971: London Bridge sold to the U.S.
- 1971: United Kingdom Changes to Decimal System for Currency
- 1971: VCRs Introduced
|
| 227 | 1972 | - 1972: First handheld calculator, from Texas Instruments
- 1972: Power workers strike crisis
- 1972: Miners call off crippling coal strike
- 1972: M*A*S*H T.V. Shows Premiers
- 1972: Mark Spitz Wins Seven Gold Medals
- 1972: Pocket Calculators Introduced
- 1972: Terrorists Attack at the Olympic Games in Munich
- 1972: Watergate Scandal Begins
|
| 228 | 1973 | - 1973: The Internet was originally set up by the U.S. Department of Defense
- 1973: Britain enters EEC Common Market with Ireland and Denmark
- 1973: Miners strike and oil crisis precipitate 'three-day week' until Mar 1974 to conserve power
- 1973: Paul Getty Kidnapped
- 1973: Sears Tower Built
- 1973: U.S. Pulls Out of Vietnam
- 1973: U.S. Vice President Resigns
|
| 229 | 1974 | - 1974: OPEC oil shock
- 1974: President Nixon resigns over Watergate scandal
- 1974: Halie Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, Deposed
- 1974: Mikhail Baryshnikov Defects
- 1974: Terracotta Army Discovered in China
- 1974: U.S. President Nixon Resigns
|
| 230 | 1975 | - 1975: End of Vietnam war
- 1975: Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act come into force in UK
- 1975: Arthur Ashe First Black Man to Win Wimbledon
- 1975: Civil War in Lebanon
- 1975: Microsoft Founded
- 1975: Pol Pot Becomes the Communist Dictator of Cambodia
|
| 231 | 1976 | - 1976: First Apple computer
- 1976: Viking Lander lands on Mars
- 1976: NASA's Viking Lander lands on Mars, starts looking for alien life
- 1976: Long hot summer in UK. Parliament introduces Drought Act
- 1976: Nadia Comaneci Given Seven Perfect Tens
- 1976: North and South Vietnam Join to Form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
- 1976: Tangshan Earthquake Kills Over 240,000
|
| 232 | 1977 | - 1977: The Centre National d'Art et de la Culture Georges-Pompidou (Pompidou Centre or "Beaubourg"), a Hi-Tech metal-framework building designed by Richard Rogers, is completed in Paris and proves immensely popular.
- 1977: UK road speed limits set at 70mph for dual roads; 60mph single
- 1977: Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Silver Jubilee
- 1977: 'Star Wars' fever invades Britain as thousands flock to cinemas to watch the long-awaited sci-fi blockbuster
- 1977: Elvis Found Dead
- 1977: Miniseries Roots Airs
- 1977: South African Anti-Apartheid Leader Steve Biko Tortured to Death
- 1977: Star Wars Movie Released
|
| 233 | 1978 | - 1978: World's first 'test tube' baby, Louise Browne born in Oldham
- 1978: Writer and broadcaster Georgi Markov dies after an assassin stabs him with a poisoned umbrella at a London bus stop.
- 1978: Pope John Paul II elected by cardinals: first non-Italian for 450 years
- 1978: First Test-Tube Baby Born
- 1978: John Paul II Becomes Pope
- 1978: Jonestown Massacre
|
| 234 | 1979 | - 1979: Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister to 1990 (Conservative)
- 1979: Public sector strike paralyses UK
- 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes first woman UK Prime Minister
- 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini Returns as Leader of Iran
- 1979: Iran Takes American Hostages in Tehran
- 1979: Margaret Thatcher First Woman Prime Minister of Great Britain
- 1979: Mother Theresa Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1979: Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island
- 1979: Sony Introduces the Walkman
|
| 235 | 1980 | - 1980: Arthur Fry, a chemist for 3M, invented the Post-It note
- 1980: Failed U.S. Rescue Attempt to Save Hostages in Tehran
- 1980: John Lennon Assassinated
- 1980: Mount St. Helens Erupts
- 1980: Rubik's Cube Popular
- 1980: Ted Turner Establishes CNN
- 1980: Failed U.S. Rescue Attempt to Save Hostages in Tehran
|
| 236 | 1981 | - 1981: First US Space Shuttle (Columbia) launched
- 1981: Worst April blizzards of 20th century in Britain
- 1981: Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer
- 1981: Assassination Attempt on the Pope
- 1981: Assassination Attempt on U.S. President Reagan
- 1981: Millions Watch Royal Wedding on T.V.
- 1981: New Plague Identified as AIDS
- 1981: Pac-Man is Extremely Popular
- 1981: Personal Computers (PC) Introduced by IBM
|
| 237 | 1982 | - 1982: Argentina invades Falkland Islands
- 1982: Unemployment reaches 3 million in Britain
- 1982: Women's peace protests against cruise missiles begin at Greenham Common
- 1982: E.T. Movie Released
- 1982: Falkland Islands Invaded by Argentina
- 1982: King Henry VIII's Ship the Mary Rose Raised After 437 Years
- 1982: Reverend Sun Myung Moon Marries 2,075 Couples at Madison Square Garden
|
| 238 | 1983 | - 1983: Margaret Thatcher wins landslide second term election victory, taking 397 seats to Labour's 209
- 1983: ?1 coin goes into circulation in Britain
- 1983: Reagan Announces Defense Plan Called Star Wars
- 1983: Soviets Shoot Down a Korean Airliner
|
| 239 | 1984 | - 1984: Miners' strike in UK - High Court orders sequestration of NUM assets
- 1984: Huge Poison Gas Leak in Bhopal, India
- 1984: Indira Gandhi, India's Prime Minister, Killed by Two Bodyguards
|
| 240 | 1985 | - 1985: BBC launches 'EastEnders' as soap rival to 'Coronation Street'
- 1985: Famine in Ethiopia
- 1985: Hole in the Ozone Layer Discovered
- 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev Calls for Glasnost and Perestroika
- 1985: Wreck of the Titanic Found
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| 241 | 1986 | - 1986: US bombing of Libya
- 1986: Chernobyl nuclear accident in USSR
- 1986: LiveAid, the biggest music event staged to date
- 1986: Seven dead in 'Challenger' space shuttle disaster
- 1986: Challenger Space Shuttle Explodes
- 1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
- 1986: Ferdinand Marcos Flees the Philippines
- 1986: Iran-Contra Scandal Unfolds
- 1986: U.S. Bombs Libya
- 1986: U.S.S.R. Launches Mir Space Station
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| 242 | 1987 | - 1987: Margaret Thatcher wins record third term as UK prime minister
- 1987: DNA First Used to Convict Criminals
- 1987: Klaus Barbie, the Nazi Butcher of Lyons, Sentenced to Life in Prison
- 1987: New York Stock Exchange Suffers Huge Drop on 'Black Monday'
- 1987: West German Pilot Lands Unchallenged in Russia's Red Square
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| 243 | 1988 | - 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 Is Bombed Over Lockerbie
- 1988: U.S. Shoots Down Iranian Airliner
|
| 244 | 1989 | - 1989: Berlin Wall Falls
- 1989: Exxon Valdez Spills Millions of Gallons of Oil on Coastline
- 1989: Students Massacred in China's Tiananmen Square
|
| 245 | 1990 | - 1990: John Major Prime Minister to 1997 (Conservative)
- 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, triggering first gulf war
- 1990: Violence flares in London Poll Tax demonstration
- 1990: Margaret Thatcher quits as UK prime minister
- 1990: Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela freed from prison in South Africa after 27 years
- 1990: Hubble Telescope Launched Into Space
- 1990: Lech Walesa Becomes First President of Poland
- 1990: Nelson Mandela Freed
|
| 246 | 1991 | - 1991: Bronze Age Man Found Frozen in Glacier
- 1991: Collapse of the Soviet Union
- 1991: Operation Desert Storm
- 1991: South Africa Repeals Apartheid Laws
|
| 247 | 1992 | - 1992: Official End of the Cold War
|
| 248 | 1993 | - 1993: Cult Compound in Waco, Texas Raided
- 1993: Use of the Internet Grows Exponentially
- 1993: World Trade Center Bombed
|
| 249 | 1994 | - 1994: Channel Tunnel Opens, Connecting Britain and France
- 1994: Lorena Bobbit Takes Brutal Revenge
- 1994: Nelson Mandela Elected President of South Africa
- 1994: O.J. Simpson Arrested for Double Murder
- 1994: Rwandan Genocide Begins
|
| 250 | 1995 | - 1995: Ebola Virus Spreads in Zaire
- 1995: Gas Attack in Tokyo Subway
- 1995: Yitzhak Rabin Assassinated
|
| 251 | 1996 | - 1996: Mad Cow Disease Hits Britain
- 1996: Two Royal Divorces
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| 252 | 1997 | - 1997: UK General Election: Labour routs Tories and Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister
- 1997: Hale-Bopp Comet Visible
- 1997: Hong Kong Returned to China
- 1997: Pathfinder Sends Back Images of Mars
- 1997: Princess Diana Dies in Car Crash
- 1997: Scientists Clone Sheep
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| 253 | 1998 | - 1998: India and Pakistan Test Nuclear Weapons
- 1998: Titanic Most Successful Movie Ever
- 1998: U.S. President Clinton Impeached
- 1998: Viagra on the Market
|
| 254 | 1999 | - 1999: The Euro the New European Currency
- 1999: Fear of Y2K Bug
- 1999: Killing Spree at Columbine High School
- 1999: NATO Attacks Serbia
- 1999: Panama Canal Returns to Panama
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| 255 | 2000 | - 2000: Fuel protests paralyse Britain for seven days
- 2000: World celebrates New Millennium: UK opens unpopular dome visitor attraction at Greenwich
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| 256 | 2001 | - 2001: 11 SEP attacks on US
- 2001: Outbreak of Foot & Mouth disease in UK. Millions of animals slaughtered and burned across the nation
- 2001: General Election - Labour returned to power in UK
|
| 257 | 2002 | - 2002: The Queen Mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon dies, aged 101 years
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| 258 | 2005 | - 2005: UK General election returns Labour to power for third term under Tony Blair
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1938 - 2017 (79 years)