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   Date  Event(s)
1617 
  • 1617: England - The first one way streets were established in London. Seventeen one way streets were created to regulate 'disorder and rude behaviour of Carmen, Draymen, and others using Cartes'.
1618 
1620 
1621 
  • 8 Sep 1621: France - Prince Louis II de Condé, known as the Great Condé, was born. He was a French general who loved to hunt and had a passion for rice. Several dishes have been named for him, including Consomme Condé and Creme Condé.
1622 
  • 1622: England - James I dissolves Parliament for asserting its right to debate foreign affairs
  • 1622: England - Weekly News, first English newspaper, published.
  • 1622: England - Commission to enquire into decline of woollen trade
1623 
1624 
1625 
1626 
  • 1626: England - Francis Bacon died. An English statesman, philosopher and author of Novum Organum, a work on scientific inquiry, he died after having stuffing a dressed chicken with snow to see how long the flesh could be preserved by the extreme cold. He caught cold and died from complications about a month later.
  • 1626: England - A large Codfish, split open at a Cambridge market, is found to contain a copy of a book of religious treatises by John Frith.
10 1627 
  • 1627: England - William Harvey was able to confirm his observation that the blood circulates throughout the body, which he inferred from the structure of the venal valves. The following year, in Exercitatio Anatomica, he published these conclusions as well as a description of the heart as a mechanical pump.
  • 1627: Warsaw, Poland - The last known living ancestor of all modern domestic cattle (the aurochs) was killed by a poacher
  • 1627: England - John Ray (Wray) was born. A leading 17th century English naturalist and botanist. He contributed to the advancement of taxonomy, and established the species as the basic unit of taxonomy.
11 1628 
12 1629 
13 1630 
14 1633 
  • 1633: America - Connecticut settled; Maryland founded by George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore
  • 1633: England - Bananas were supposedly displayed in the shop window of merchant Thomas Johnson. This was the first time the banana had ever been seen in Great Britain. It would be more than 200 years before they were regularly imported. In 1999 remains of a banana were found at a Tudor archaeological site on the banks of the River Thames. This would seem to date it 150 years earlier than Thomas Johnson's banana. A classic food mystery!
  • 1633: Rome, Italy - Galileo was forced by the Inquisition in Rome to renounce his theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
  • 3 Nov 1633: Italy - Bernardino Ramazzini was born. A physician, he was the first to note the relationship between worker's illnesses and their work environment. Considered the founder of occupational medicine.
15 1634 
  • 1634: Boston, Massachusetts - Samuel Cole supposedly opened the first tavern in the U.S.A.
16 1636 
  • 1636: England - Tulip mania begins and ceases the following year in a precursor of the 2000 dot-com crash
  • 1636: England - Mild outbreak of Black Death
  • 1636: England - W. Gascoigne invents the micrometer.
  • 1636: America - The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established Harvard College (New College), the first college in the Americas.
17 1637 
18 1638 
19 1639 
20 1640 
21 1641 
22 1642 
23 1643 
24 1644 
25 1645 
26 1646 
  • 1646: England - Charles I surrenders to the Scots
27 1647 
28 1648 
29 1649 
  • 1649: London, England - The Commonwealth, in which England is governed as a republic, is established and lasts until 1660
  • 1649: Ireland - Cromwell harshly suppresses Catholic rebellions
  • 1649: England - Long Parliament (Rump Parliament) confiscates land; House of Lords abolished; Charles II, meanwhile in exile on Continent, travels to Scotland, signs Covenant, Scots support him
  • 1649: England - Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, ruler of England to 1658. Commonwealth & Protectorate.
  • 1649: England - Nicholas Culpeper, Herbalist, wrote the pseudoscientific A Physicall Directory. It listed plants and their supposed healing properties based on the plants resemblance to the human body parts.
  • 30 Jan 1649: London, England - Execution of Charles I
30 1650 
31 1651 
  • 1651: England - Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argued from a mechanistic theory that man is a selfishly individualistic animal at constant war with others. In the state of nature, life is 'nasty, brutish, and short.'
  • 1651: England - Navigation Act passes, forbids exportation of goods except in all-English ships, foreign merchants and goods prohibited in England and colonies, strengthened in 1660
  • 3 Sep 1651: England - Charles II invades England and is defeated at Battle of Worcester; Charles escapes to France
32 1652 
33 1653 
  • 1653: England - Oliver Cromwell dissolves the 'Rump Parliament' and becomes Lord Protector
  • 1653: England - England victorious in battles against Spain and aids France against Spain; England becomes leading naval power and important military power; restores legal rights to Jews
34 1654 
35 1655 
36 1656 
37 1657 
38 1658 
39 1659 
40 1660 
41 1661 
42 1662 
43 1663 
44 1664 
45 1665 
46 1666 
  • 1666: England - First European printed paper banknote issued
  • 1666: London, England - The Great Fire of London began in the shop of the King's baker. After burning for four days, more than 13,000 buildings had been destroyed.
47 1667 
  • 1667: Medway River, Kent - Dutch fleet defeats the English
48 1668 
49 1669 
  • 1669: England - Isaac Newton circulated a manuscript, De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas, the first notice of his calculus.
50 1670 
51 1671 
52 1672 
53 1673 
54 1674 
55 1675 
56 1676 
57 1677 
58 1678 
59 1679 
60 1680 
  • 1680: America - Pennsylvania founded by William Penn for oppressed Quakers
  • 1680: England - Moves to remove Charles II's brother James from succession persist through into 1681 (because he married an Italian and converted to Catholicism) and replace with Charles's illegitimate son, also Charles;civil war between Tories and Whigs narrowly averted
61 1681 
62 1685 
63 1686 
64 1687 
65 1688 
66 1689 
67 1690 
68 1691 
  • 3 Oct 1691: Limerick, Ireland - The Treaty of Limerick allows Catholics in Ireland to exercise their religion freely, but severe penal laws soon follow. The French War begins
69 1692 
70 1693 
71 1694 
72 1695 
73 1697 
74 1698 
  • 1698: England - Thomas Savery patented an engine which produced a vacuum by condensing steam. It was employed for raising water from a mine and supplying water to several country houses.
  • 1698: Russia - Tsar Peter the Great begins taxing men with beards
75 1699 
  • 23 May 1699: America - John Bartram was born. A naturalist and explorer, considered 'father of American botany'; established a world renowned botanical garden in Philadelphia in 1728.
76 1700 
77 1701 
78 1702 
79 1703 
  • 1703: Epworth, Lincolnshire, England - Birth of John Wesley. By 1784, 356 Methodist chapels built in places lacking church
80 1704 
81 1706 
  • 1706: London, England - The Evening Post, first evening newspaper issued
  • 23 May 1706: Netherlands - British, Bavarian and Austrian troops under Marlborough defeat the French at the Battle of Ramillies, and expel the French from the Netherlands
82 1707 
  • 1707: Great Britain - The Act of Union unites the kingdoms of England and Scotland and transfers the seat of Scottish Government to London
83 1708 
  • 11 Jul 1708: England - The Duke of Marlborough defeats the French at the Battle of Oudenarde. The French incur heavy losses. Queen Anne vetoes a parliamentary bill to recognise the Scottish militia. This is the last time a bill is vetoed by the sovereign
84 1709 
85 1710 
  • 1710: Great Britain - A Tory ministry is formed, under Harley, with the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell and the fall of the Whig government
  • 1710: Great Britain - Wooden panelling replaces tapestry as wall covering
86 1711 
87 1712 
88 1713 
89 1714 
90 1715 
91 1716 
  • 1716: Italy - John Lombe steals plans for silk manufacture, returning to England he and brother Thomas build vast factory on island at Derby
  • 1716: Scotland - James Lind was born. Lind was a Scottish physician who recommended that fresh citrus fruit and lemon juice be included in the seamen's diet to eliminate scurvy. The Dutch had been doing this for almost two hundred years.
92 1717 
  • 1717: Great Britain - Townshend is dismissed from government by George I, causing Walpole to resign. The Whig party is split. Convocation is suspended
  • 1717: Europe - England allies with French and Dutch against Spanish, Spanish brought to heel in 1718
  • 1717: Great Britain - Edmond Halley invents the diving bell.
  • 1717: Great Britain - John Lombe in England invents a machine for 'throwing' silk which produces a strong twisted thread
93 1719 
94 1720 
  • 1720: Great Britain - Dr. Richard Mead publishes Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion, advocates quarantine, proposes establishment of government Council of Health; inoculation against smallpox introduced from Constantinople by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
  • 1720: Great Britain - Hospitals founded in London: Guy's, St. George's, London & Middlesex in period to 1745
  • 1720: Meiringen, Switzerland - Invention of meringue is attributed to an Italian pastry chef named Gasparini.
95 1721 
96 1722 
97 1723 
  • 1723: Great Britain - Legislation allowing parishes to create 'unions' or workhouses, to prevent escape of children they could be manacled
  • 1723: Great Britain - Excise Act, restrictions removed on exports, duty removed on imports of raw materials; London builds bonded warhouse for tea, coffee and chocolate
  • 1723: New England, USA - Dummer's War 1723-1726.
  • 16 Jul 1723: Devon, Great Britain - Birth of Sir Joshua Reynolds (died 1792), arguably finest English landscape and portrait painter, career 1750-1780
98 1724 
99 1725 
  • 30 Apr 1725: Great Britain - Treaty of Vienna: Austria and Spain resolve differences
100 1726 
101 1727 
102 1728 
  • 1728: France - Pierre Fauchard, in The Surgeon Dentist, described preventive measures to keep teeth healthy as well as inventing the word dentist.
103 1729 
104 1730 
  • 1730: Great Britain - A split occurs between Walpole and Townshend
  • 1730: Ireland - Famine strikes
  • 1730: Great Britain - In early part of 1700s, death rate had surpassed birth rate; begins to reverse; after 1780 death-rate plummets - due to replacement of gin-drinking with beer-drinking after taxes increased and retail sales curtailed on former in 1750; medical care improves, as does agriculture, more food available
  • 1730: Great Britain - Georg Brandt, a Swedish chemist, discovered the element cobalt. Cobalt is used in steel making, and is an essential part of vitamin B12.
105 1731 
106 1732 
  • 1732: British North America - A royal charter is granted for the founding of Georgia in America
  • 1732: Great Britain - The English banned American made hats to protect domestic haberdashers.
107 1733 
  • 1733: Great Britain - The Excise Crisis occurs and Walpole is forced to abandon his plans to reorganise the customs and excise
  • 1733: Europe - Further cementing of relations between Austria and Spain
  • 1733: Great Britain - John Kay invents the flying shuttle.
108 1734 
  • 1734: Great Britain - Walpole returned to power with smaller majority, power weakened
109 1736 
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114 1741 
  • 1741: Ireland - Further famine, population about 4 million
115 1742 
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122 1749 
  • 1749: Great Britain - Deaths among women 1 in 41, children 1 in 15 during period to 1758
123 1750 
  • 1750: Great Britain - The grapefruit was first described by Griffith Hughes as the 'forbidden fruit' of Barbados
  • 1750: Scotland - Royal Infirmaries are founded in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen
  • 1750: Great Britain - Tea-drinking begins to rival alcohol-drinking
  • 1750: Great Britain - Population of England and Wales estimated at 6.5 million
  • 1750: Great Britain - During period to 1780 English countryside takes on today's familiar apearance as accelerated enclosure produces small fields surrounded by hedges, fences and walls
124 1751 
  • 1751: British North America - 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: Great Britain - Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His son, Prince George, becomes heir to the throne
125 1752 
126 1753 
  • 1753: Great Britain - Parliament passes the Naturalization of Jews Act
  • 1753: Great Britain - James Lind (1716-1794) Scottish Navy physician, publishes Treatise on Scurvy; Sir Gilbert Blane, Scottish Naval surgeon, enforces strict rules regarding cleanliness, improves health, lifespan of sailors
127 1754 
  • 1754: Great Britain - First royal troops disembark in India; Takes 4.5 days to travel London to Manchester
  • 1754: France - Antoine Beauvilliers was born. He was a French chef who founded the first luxury restaurant, La Grande Taverne de Londres.
128 1755 
129 1756 
130 1757 
131 1758 
132 1759 
133 1760 
134 1761 
  • 1761: Great Britain - Laurence Sterne publishes the enigmatic Tristram Shandy
  • 1761: Great Britain - Jonas Hanway and David Porter begin campaign on behalf of child chimney sweeps, achieve protective legislation in 1788
  • 1761: Pondicherry, India - Pondicherry captured, French power destroyed
  • 1761: Great Britain - William Pitt the elder resigns over King and advisors not permitting further conflict with France and ally Spain
  • 1761: Great Britain - River power reaches saturation point, Duke of Bridgewater cuts Worsley Canal, thereby halving price of coal in Manchester
  • 1761: Great Britain - Englishman John Harrison invents the navigational clock or marine chronometer for measuring longitude.
  • 1761: Great Britain - Various municipalities secure Private Acts by which money can be raised ('rates') to pay for public improvements, such as paving and lighting in period to 1765
135 1762 
  • 1762: Great Britain - 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: Great Britain - The Earl of Bute is appointed Prime Minister. He becomes very unpopular and employs a bodyguard
  • 1762: France - Académie Francaise recognises term millionaire
  • 1762: Great Britain - Spain declares war on Britain; Britain gains West Indian islands from French, Cuba and Manila from Spanish
136 1763 
137 1764 
138 1765 
  • 1765: Great Britain - Rockingham ministry. The American Stamp Act raises taxes in the colonies in an attempt to make their defence self-financing
  • 1765: Great Britain - Earliest known children's pop-up book
  • 1765: France - The very first pâté de foie gras (goose liver paste) is said to have been created in Strasbourg by a Norman chef named Jean-Joseph Close. (Although the technique for producing foie gras goes back as far as the ancient Egyptians)
  • 1765: Paris, France - M. Boulanger opens the first restaurant, by that name
139 1766 
  • 1766: Great Britain - Chatham ministry. Repeal of the American Stamp Act
  • 1766: Great Britain - Priestley discovers Law of Inverse Squares (electricity), Louis XV convulses with laughter when line of monks leap into air as electric shock is administered
  • 1766: France - Louis, Marquis de Cussy was born. French gastronome, a friend of Grimod de la Reyniere, who stated that Cussy had invented 366 different ways to prepare chicken. Cussy wrote Les Classiques de la table.
140 1767 
141 1768 
  • 1768: Great Britain - Grafton ministry. The Middlesex Election Crisis occurs.
  • 1768: Great Britain - General election, reformer Wilkes elected as member for Middlesex amid scenes of jubilation; Royal Academy (painting) founded
142 1769 
  • 1769: Great Britain - 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: Great Britain - Captain James Cook's first voyage to explore the Pacific begins
  • 1769: Great Britain - Richard Arkwright develops the water-powered spinning frame
143 1770 
144 1771 
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146 1773 
147 1774 
148 1775 
149 1776 
  • 1776: England - Common Sense published by Tom Paine
  • 1776: Great Britain - 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: Great Britain - Wilkes introduces bill for universal male suffrage
  • 1776: Great Britain - David Bushnell invents a submarine.
  • 1776: Great Britain - Edward Gibbon authors Decline and Fall of Roman Empire in period to 1788
  • 4 Jul 1776: USA - The American Congress passes their Declaration of Independence from Britain.
150 1777 
151 1778 
152 1779 
  • 1779: Great Britain - The rise of Wyvill's Christopher Wyvill's radical Yorkshire Association Movement
153 1780 
154 1781 
  • 1781: Great Britain - Frederick William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus by its movement, although at the time he supposed it to be a comet
  • 1781: Great Britain - Matthew Boulton and James Watt produce an improved steam engine with rotary motion achieving significant impact - it means that manufacturers are no longer restricted to site with natural power (i.e., water, wood for charcoal)
  • 17 Oct 1781: USA - The Americans obtain a great victory of British troops at the Siege of Yorktown
155 1782 
  • 1782: Ireland - Ireland obtains short-lived parliament
  • 22 Mar 1782: Great Britain - Lord North's government collapses
156 1783 
157 1784 
158 1785 
159 1786 
  • 1786: Great Britain - The Eden commercial treaty with France is drawn up
  • 1786: Pennsylvania, USA - John Fitch invents a steamboat.
160 1787 
  • 1787: Windsor, Great Britain - In Windsor Great Park, King George III alights from carriage and addresses oak tree as King of Prussia, but eventually recovers from this attack of dementia; first colonies in Australia, first iron boat launched
161 1788 
  • 1788: Great Britain - Time to travel from London to Manchester reduced from 4.5 days to 28 hours
  • 22 Jan 1788: Great Britain - Birth of Lord Byron (died 1824)
162 1789 
  • 1789: France - French Revolution, Louis XVI, many aristocrats and others executed, France declares war on European monarchies
  • 1789: France - The guillotine is invented.
  • 1789: Great Britain - The French Revolution sounded the death knoll toward elaborate and affected dress and hairdos. The powdered wig and towering women's hair styles passed from fashion. Simpler, more practical clothes emerged. Boys wore the skeleton suit, often with a comfortable open collar, and by the end of the century with plebian long trousers.
  • 1789: USA - Thomas Jefferson brought a pasta making machine back with him when he returned to America after serving as ambassador to France.
  • 1789: Switzerland - Dr. Pierre Ordinaire creates an absinthe elixir
  • 30 Apr 1789: USA - George Washington first president of the United States 1789-1797.
163 1790 
164 1791 
165 1792 
  • 1792: Italy - 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: Great Britain - Coal gas is used for lighting for the first time. Mary Wollstonecraft publishes her Vindication of the Rights of Women
  • 1792: Great Britain - Cartwright invents steam-powered weaving loom
  • 1792: Great Britain - The first ambulance.
166 1793 
  • 1793: Great Britain - Economic depression
  • 1793: Great Britain - Speculative 'Canal Bubble' bursts
  • 1793: Great Britain - Board of Agriculture formed to popularise new methods and machinery
  • 1793: Great Britain - Britain becomes foremost world trader during period to 1815
  • 1793: Great Britain - Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin which efficiently separates cotton fibers from the seeds, allowing one person to do a job once done by 50 people. This profoundly changes the economics of raising cotton, revitalizing slavery in the American South.
  • 1 Feb 1793: Great Britain - France declares war on Britain
167 1794 
  • 1794: Great Britain - 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: Great Britain - Metric system introduced in France
  • 1794: Great Britain - More lower-class radicalism, Habeas Corpus suspended again, instigators charged with treason, in Scotland found guilty and transported
  • 1794: Great Britain - Welshman Philip Vaughan invents ball bearings.
  • 1794: Great Britain - Total of 40,000 British troops die in West Indies in war with France over two year period
  • 1 Jun 1794: Great Britain - Howe defeats French fleet at Ushant
168 1795 
169 1796 
  • 1796: Great Britain - 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
  • 1796: Italy - General Napoleon Bonaparte appears on scene, attacks Austrian armies
  • 1796: Ceylon - British conquer Ceylon
170 1797 
  • 1797: Europe - All Europe makes peace with France save Britain, sea battle off Cape St. Vincent (off Spanish coast), Jervis and Nelson (then Captain) utterly defeat big French and Spanish fleet
  • 1797: Great Britain - Royal Navy sailors at Spithead and the Nore mutiny over deplorable conditions
  • 1797: USA - John Adams president of the USA 1797-1801.
  • 1797: Great Britain - A British inventor, Henry Maudslay invents the first metal or precision lathe.
  • 1797: Great Britain - Wittemore patents a carding machine.
  • 1797: Great Britain - John Hetherington in London develops the top hat.
  • 1797: Great Britain - Major Dubied purchased the formula for an 'absinthe elixir' and together with his son, Henri-Louis Pernod sets up an absinthe factory in Switzerland.
171 1798 
172 1799 
173 1800 
174 1801 
  • 1801: UK - The first British Census is undertaken
  • 1801: UK - Population of England and Wales now 10 million, Great Britain estimated at 11 million, biggest increases in North and West Midlands, London now 1 million plus, Manchester 137,201, Glasgow and Edinburgh 100,000 plus, England has 8 towns larger than 50,000, 6 of them in the North; Lord Dundas travels on Scottish canal in small steamboat - beginning of steamboat travel
  • 1801: UK - Tripolitan War 1801-1805. Barbary Wars: also fought in 1815. United States vs Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli 1801-1805.
  • 1801: USA - Thomas Jefferson president of the USA 1801-1809.
175 1802 
176 1803 
177 1804 
178 1805 
179 1806 
180 1807 
181 1808 
  • 1808: Peninsular War to drive the French out of Spain (until 1814)
  • 1808: Portugal - Battle of Vimeiro is a British victory; British casualties less than 40,000 dead
182 1809 
183 1810 
184 1811 
  • 1811: UK - Depression caused by Orders of Council.
  • 1811: UK - George III's illness leads to his son, the Prince of Wales, becoming Regent
  • 1811: UK - Ned Ludd leads rioters who smash machinery, burn factories, followers known as Luddites
  • 1811: UK - Birth rate falls all over England during the next 20 years
185 1812 
186 1813 
187 1814 
188 1815 
  • 1815: Europe - Peace is established in Europe at the Congress of Vienna.
  • 1815: UK - The Corn Laws are passed by Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports
  • 1815: UK - Start of two-year commercial boom in Britain
  • 1815: UK - England has now 2600 miles of canals, 500 in Scotland and Ireland; China clippers take 109 days to sail 15000 miles from Canton to English Channel; Britain's population estimated at 13 million; Britain imports 82 million pounds of raw cotton, by 1860 1000 million pounds; coal output 16 million tons (30 miillion by 1835, 50 million by 1848)
  • 1815: UK - Sir Humphry Davy invents the miner's lamp.
  • 1815: UK - Over the next fifteen years, five new states are founded along Mississippi Valley, mostly due to people fleeing Depression; more go to Canada, as many as 20,000 some years, frequently Scots
  • Mar 1815: Elba, France - Napoleon escapes, leads French in war once more
  • 18 Jun 1815: Belgium - Duke of Wellington trounces the French at Waterloo with timely help of Blucher (Prussia)
189 1816 
190 1817 
191 1818 
192 1819 
193 1820 
194 1821 
195 1822 
  • 1822: France - First prototype Espresso machine
  • 1822: Ireland - Famine in Ireland prompts migration to US and Canada
196 1823 
197 1824 
198 1825 
199 1826 
200 1827 
201 1828 
202 1829 
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205 1832 
206 1833 
207 1834 
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222 1849 
  • 1849: USA - Zachary Taylor president of the USA 1849-1850. Zachary Taylor died while in office.
  • 1849: UK - Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
223 1850 
  • 1850: USA - 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: UK - First machine-made paper bag
  • 1850: UK - Mines Inspectorate created, helps protect adult male mine workers
  • 1850: USA - Millard Fillmore president of the USA 1850-1853. Vice president under Zachary Taylor, he was sworn in as president after Taylor's death.
224 1851 
  • 1851: UK - The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success
  • 1851: UK - Window tax abolished
  • 1851: USA - Patent for sewing machine issued to Isaac Singer
  • 1851: UK - British Census shows 10,736,000 females, 8,155,000 of whom were aged 10 and older, largest occupational group domestic service workers, 905,000, 145,000 washerwomen, 55,000 charwomen (cleaners), 272,000 in cotton industry, 113,000 in woolen industry, 140,000 in lace, hosiery and linen
  • 1851: Europe - First submarine cable, Dover to Calais
  • 1851: London, UK - Reuters opens news agency
  • 1851: Africa - Livingstone's explorations begin
  • 1851: Australia - Population of Australia rises from 405,000 in 1851 to 1,168,000 in 1861
  • Sep 1851: Melbourne, Australia - Gold fever - 19,000 immigrants land in one month, for the whole year 94,664, seven times as many as 1851
225 1852 
226 1853 
227 1854 
228 1855 
  • 1855: UK - John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump.
  • 1855: UK - Palmerston's first government comes to power
229 1856 
230 1857 
231 1858 
232 1859 
233 1860 
234 1861 
235 1862 
236 1863 
237 1864 
238 1865 
239 1866 
240 1867 
241 1868 
242 1869 
243 1870 
244 1871 
245 1872 
  • 1872: UK - Secret voting is introduced for elections
  • 1872: UK - Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act
  • 1872: USA - A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog.
  • 1872: UK - J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill.
  • 1872: UK - Period to 1896 sees three economic slumps and two recoveries, said to be due to imported foodstuffs from US depressing Britain's agricultural business
  • 1872: USA - Levi Strauss discovered rugged trousers for miners made out of sturdy brown canvas. Once this resource was exhausted, he turned to denim, which he dyed blue to become what is known now as blue jeans
246 1873 
247 1874 
248 1875 
  • 1875: UK - Benjamin Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal.
  • 1875: UK - Parliament passes R.A. Cross's Conservative social reforms
  • 1875: UK - Collapse of British agriculture due to cheap grain from US, wheat acreage falls by nearly a million acres
249 1876 
250 1877 
251 1878 
252 1879 
253 1880 
  • 1880: UK - William Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government
  • 1880: South Africa - The first Anglo-Boer War begins
  • 1880: UK - British forests now decimated except for bits of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean.
  • 1880: UK - Number of agricultural labourers reduced by about 100,000 in last 10 years
  • 1880: UK - Englishman John Milne invents the modern seismograph.
  • 1880: UK - The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper.
254 1881 
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  • 1890: UK - Starting this decade, women's clothing becomes less voluminous, lawn tennis takes place of croquet as means of meeting opposite sex, bicycle becomes fashionable
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  • 1893: USA - 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: UK - Second Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass the House of Lords
  • 1893: New Zealand - First nation to grant women the right to vote
  • 1893: France - Car number plates introduced
  • 1893: USA - Grover Cleveland president of the USA 1893-1897.
266 1894 
  • 1894: UK - Rosebery takes power with his minority Liberal government
267 1895 
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283 1911 
284 1912 
  • 1912: North Sea - The Sinking of the Titanic: 1,515 people lose their lives.
  • 1912: UK - Parachutes Invented
  • 1912: UK - Piltdown Man, the 'Missing Link,' Discovered but later revealed as a fraud
  • 1912: SOS Accepted as Universal Distress Signal
  • 1912: UK - Motorized movie cameras invented, and replaced hand-cranked cameras.
  • 1912: UK - The first tank patented by Australian inventor De La Mole.
  • 1912: USA - Clarence Crane created Life Savers candy
285 1913 
  • 1913: USA - Leo Baekeland invented a plastic laminate, known as Bakelite, and later as Formica
  • 1913: Detroit, MI, USA - First assembly line introduced in Ford automobile factory
  • 1913: New York, NY, USA - 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. It arouses public curiosity, generates sensational news coverage, and helps change the direction of American art
  • 1913: USA - Personal Income Tax introduced
  • 1913: Washington, DC, USA - Woodrow Wilson president 1913-1921.
  • 1913: UK - The crossword puzzle was invented by Arthur Wynne.
  • 1913: USA - The Merck Chemical Company patented what is now known as ecstasy.
  • 1913: USA - Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra
  • 1913: USA - Gideon Sundback invents the modern zipper.
286 1914 
287 1915 
288 1916 
289 1917 
290 1918 
  • 1918: UK - Influenza Epidemic
  • 1918: Russia - Czar Nicholas II and his family are killed
  • 1918: UK - Summer:Great Influenza Epidemic begins, reaches height end of year, new outbreak first quarter of 1919: England and Wales lose 150,000 (15,000 in London alone)
  • 1918: UK - Final casualties for World War I - almost 1 million British Empire men killed, about 3 million maimed (744,000 killed are from UK)
  • 1918: UK - Women over 30 given the vote (complete voting equality with men comes in 1928), all men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons) given vote
  • 1918: UK - Consumer purchasing power now about 1/3 of what it was in 1914
  • 1918: USA - Charles Jung invented fortune cookies.
  • 1918: UK - Police strikes this year and the next
  • 9 Nov 1918: Europe - Kaiser abdicates, peace signed two days later at Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I
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315 1943 
316 1944 
  • 1944: France - D-Day landings
  • 1944: France - First German V1 and V2 Rockets Fired
  • 1944: Berlin, Germany - Hitler Escapes Assassination Attempt
  • 1944: USA - The kidney dialysis machine invented by Willem Kolff.
  • 1944: USA - Synthetic cortisone invented by Percy Lavon Julian.
317 1945 
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320 1948 
  • 1948: USA - Life magazine makes 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, Germany - Berlin Airlift
  • 1948: UK - Big Bang Theory Formulated
  • 1948: India - Gandhi Assassinated
  • 1948: South Africa - Policy of Apartheid Begun
  • 1948: Israel - State of Israel Founded
  • 1948: USA - The Frisbee® invented by Walter Frederick Morrison and Warren Franscioni.
  • 1948: USA - Velcro® invented by George de Mestral.
  • 1948: USA - Robert Hope-Jones invented the Wurlitzer jukebox
321 1949 
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361 1989 
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363 1991 
364 1992 
  • 1992: Waco, TX, USA - Cult Compound in Waco, Texas Raided
365 1993 
366 1994 
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369 1997 
370 1998 
  • 1998: UK - Titanic Most Successful Movie Ever
  • 1998: USA - U.S. President Clinton Impeached
  • 1998: USA - Viagra on the Market
  • 1998: Europe - The Euro the New European Currency
371 1999 
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375 2003