Main Historical Events

55-54 BC	Expeditions of Julius Ceasar.
AD 43	Invasion of Britain by Emperor Claudius.
c.50	Foundation of London.
61	Revolt of Boudicca (Boadicea) against the Romans.
122	Construction of Hydrian’s Wall begun, from the Tyne to the Solway Firth.
409	End of Roman rule in Britain.
c.450	Jutes settle in Kent.
c.477	Saxons settle in Sussex, Wessex, and Essex.
c.495	Angles settle in Norfolk and Suffolk (East Anglia).
597	Saint Augustine’s mission arrives in Kent from Rome.
793-795	Danish raids on Lindisfarne, Jarrow and Iona.
843	Kenneth MacAlpine engages in first stage of Scottish unification.
867	Northumbria falls to the Danes.
870	East Anglia falls to the Danes.
871	Alfred becomes king of Wessex.
878	Pence of Edington determines the boundary between the Saxon and Danish-controlled sectors of England.
919	Norse kingdom of York is founded by Raegnald.
1016	Cnut becomes king of England.
1017	Cnut divides England into four earldoms.
1035	Death of Cnut.
1066	Duke William of Normandy defeats and kills King Harold and becomes king of England.
1086	Domesday survey.
1087	Death of William the Conqueror; accession of his son William II Rufus.
1100	Death of William II; accession of Henry I.
1106	Henry I takes Normandy.
1135	Death of Henry I; accession of Stephen.
1139-1153	Civil war in England.
1154	Accession of Henry II.
1169-1172	English conquest of Ireland begins.
1170	Murder of Archbishop Thomas à Becket.
1189	Death of Henry II; accession of Richard I.
1199	Death of Richard I; accession of John.
1215	Magna Carta; civil war in England.
1216	Death of John; accession of Henry III.
1259	Treaty of Paris between England and France.
1265	Battle of Evesham; death of Simon de Montfort.
1267	Henry recognizes Llywelyn ap Gruffydd as Prince of Wales.
1272	Death of Henry III; accession of Edward I.
1284	Wales brought under English control.
1291	Edward I asserts his overlordship over Scotland.
1294	War with France begins.
1296	Edward I invades Scotland.
1307	Death of Edward I; accession of Edward II.
1314	Scottish victory at Bannockburn under Robert Bruce.
1315-1316	Great famine.
1321-1322	Civil war in England.
1337	The Hundred Years’ War begins.
1346	English victory over Crecy.
1347	English capture of Calais.
1348	First occurrence of the ‘Black Death’ (plague) in England.
1356	English victory at Poitiers.
1361	Second major occurrence of the Black Death.
1381	The Peasants’ Revolt.
1382	Condemnation of John Wycliffe’s works.
1394-1395	Richard II’s expedition to Ireland.
1396	Anglo-French treaty.
1412	St Andrews University founded in Scotland.
1415	English victory at Agincourt.
1419-1420	English conquest of Normandy.
1420	Anglo-French treaty of Troyes.
1449-1450	French overrunning of Normady.
1477	William Caxton’s first printed book in England.
1483	Death of Richard II at Bosworth; accession of Henry VII.
1509	Accession of Henry VIII.
1512	War with France and Scotland.
1528	War with Spain.
1533	Henry VIII marries Ann Boleyn; birth of Princess Elizabeth.
1534	Act of Supremacy; the King becomes Supreme Head of the English Church.
1535	Execution of Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher.
1536-1543	Wales joins England under one administration.
1536	Dissolution of the Monasteries; union of England and Wales.
1543	War with France.
1547	Death of Henry VIII; accession of 10-year-old Edward VI.
1549	First Book of Common Prayer.
1555	Persecution of Protestants begins under Mary Tudor.
1570	Papal bull excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I.
1580	Sir Francis drake becomes the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world.
1587	War with Spain.
1588	Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
1603	James VI of Scotland succeeds to the throne as James I of England.
1605	Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes.
1607	Settlement of Virginia in North America.
1609	Rebellion of the Northern Earls in Ireland; beginnings of the Planting of Ulster by Scotts and English Protestants.
1611	Publications of Authorized Version of the Bible.
1620	Pilgrim Fathers sail to New England.
1624-1630	War with Spain.
1626-1629	War with France.
1629	Charles I dissolves Parliament.
1640	Long Parliament summoned.
1642-1649	Civil War between Royalists (‘Cavaliers’) and Parliamentarians (‘Roundheads’).
1646	Presbyterian Church established in Scotland.
1649	Trial and execution of Charles I; England becomes a Republic (‘Commonwealth’).
1649-1653	The ‘Rump’ Parliament.
1649-1650	Oliver Cromwell ‘pacifies’ Ireland.
1650-1652	Oliver Cromwell conquers Scotland.
1653	Cromwell dissolves the ‘Rump’ Parliament and becomes Lord Protector.
1655-1660	War with Spain.
1658	Cromwell dies and is succeeded by his son Richard.
1659	Richard is overthrown by the army.
1660	Charles II is restored.
1662	The Royal Society is established.
1665	The Great Plague.
1666	The Great Fire of London.
1679-1681	The emergence of Whig and Tory parties.
1688	‘Glorious Revolution’: William of Orange invades; James II escapes to France; accession of William III.
1689	Bill of Rights settles succession to the throne and declares illegal various grievances.
1690	James II defeated by William III in Ireland (Battle of the Boyne).
1694	Bank of England is founded.
1701	The War of Spanish Succession begins.
1702	British capture Gibraltar from spain.
1704	Malborough defeats the French at the Battle of Blenheim.
1707	Union of England and Scotland.
1713	Peace Treaty of Utrecht concludes the War of Spanish Succession.
1715	Jacobite rebellion in Scotland under Earl of Mar.
1720	South Sea Bubble: many investors ruined after speculation in the stock of the South Sea Company.
1721	Walpole ministry.
1738	John Wesley begins the Methodist movement.
1745	Prince Charles Edward leads a second Jacobite rising in Scotland and is finally defeated at Culloden.
1756	Seven Years’ War: Britain allied with Frederick the Great of Prussia against France, Austria and Russia.
1757	Battle of Plassey: British victory of Bengal over the French in India.
1759	Capture of Quebec: British victory over the French in Canada.
c.1760s-1830s	Industrial Revolution.
1763	Peace of Paris concludes Seven Years’ War.
1769	James Watt’s steam engine patented.
1773	Boston Tea Party: American colonists protest against the East India Company’s monopoly of tea exports to America.
1776	Declaration of American Independence; Adam Smith publishes Wealth of Nations.
1783	Peace of Versailles recognizes independence of American colonies.
1796	Vaccination against smallpox introduced.
1801	Union with Ireland.
1802	Prime minister Peel introduces first factory legislation.
1803	War with France.
1805	Battle of Trafalgar: Nelson defeats the French and Spanish fleets.
1811	‘Luddite’ disturbances in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.
1813	East India Company’s monopoly abolished.
1815	Battle of Waterloo: defeat of Napoleon. Congress of Vienna; peace in Europe. Corn Law passed setting the price of corn at 80s. per quarter.
1819	Peterloo massacre in Manchester.
1825	Stockton-Darlington railway opened. Trade Union legalized.
1828	Nonconformists allowed to hold public offices.
1829	Roman Catholics are given vote and allowed to hold public offices; organization of the police force by Robert Peele.
1832	First Reform Act extends franchise and restructures representation in Parliament.
1833	First government grant for education.
1834	Slavery is abolished in the British Empire. Parish workhouses instituted.
1837	Accession of Queen Victoria.
1838	People’s Charter demands fundamental political reform.
1840	Penny post is instituted.
1844	Rochdale Co-operative Society is founded. Royal Commission on Health of Towns. Potato famine begins in Ireland.
1844-1845	Railway mania. 5,000 miles of tract laid.
1846	Corn Law abolished.
1847	Chloroform is first used as an anaesthetic.
1848	Chartism finally collapses. Public Health Act.
1851	Great Exhibition is held in London at the Crystal Palace.
1854	Working Men’s College founded in London. The Crimean War, in which Britain and France are engaged with Russia, and with Florence Nightingale comes to public prominence.
1856	Bessemer’s new, and cheaper, steel making process is introduced.
1857	Matrimonial Causes Act, setting up divorce courts allowing men to obtain divorce on the grounds of the adultery of the wife.
1858	Indian Mutiny suppressed.
1859	The Society for promoting the Employment of Women formed. Publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
1862	Limited Liability Act provides vital stimulus to accumulation of capital shares.
1864	First national Trade Union Conference is held.
1865	Irish Fenian movement founded against British rule.
1867	Second Reform Act increases suffrage.
1868	Trades Union Congress meets for the first time.
1869	Labour Representation League founded. Irish Church disestablished.
1870	Forster’s Education Act extends the provision of elementary education. Married Women’s Property Act extends the rights of women in marriage.
1872	Ballot Act creates secret voting.
1874	First Trade Union Members of Parliament elected. Disraeli’s second Conservative government.
1875	Disraeli buys Suez Canal shares, gaining a controlling interest for Britain. Agricultural depression deepens.
1876	Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.
1878	Women are admitted to degree courses at the University of London.
1879	British-Zulu war in Africa.
1880	Mundella’s Education Act introduces compulsory schooling for children between the ages of five and thirteen.
1884	Third Reform Act extends suffrage to virtually all adult males. A series of explosions in London caused by Fenians.
1886	Gladstone’s third Liberal government fails to enact first Home Rule Bill for Ireland: Liberal Party splits.
1892	Three Independent Socialists elected as MPs.
1893	Second Home Rule Bill rejected by Lords; election of the first socialist M.P., Keir Hardie.
1897	National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies founded.
1899	Boer war in South Africa begins.
1900	Labour Party founded.
1901	Death of Queen Victoria.
1902	Boer War ends.
1904	Anglo-French Entente.
1906	Labour Party wins fifty-three seats in the General Election.
1908	Old Age Pension introduced.
1909	Campaign for female suffrage intensifies.
1911	The physicist Rutherford propounds a new theory of the atom. Parliament curtails power of the House of lords; establishes five-yearly elections.
1914	The Great War (First World War) breaks out.
1915-1916	Dardanelles expedition, ending in British withdrawal from Gallipoli.
1918	The Great War finally ends after immense destruction and loss of life. Limited female franchise granted in Britain.
1922	Creation of the Irish Free State, following the treaty concluded with Sinn Fein in December 1921.
1924	Macdonald’s first Labour government. Conservatives return to office under Prime minister Baldwin.
1925	Plaid Cymru, the welsh nationalist party founded.
1926	General Strike (3-12 May).
1929	General election: MacDonald leads the second Labour government.
1935	Government of India Act.
1937	Neville Chamberlain succeeds Baldwin as Conservative Prime Minister.
1938	Chamberlain meets Hitler in Munich. Abdication of Edward VIII.
1939	British Empire declares war on Germany (3 September).
1940	Winston Churchill succeeds Chamberlain as Prime Minister.
1942	Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein, North Africa.
1943	Anglo-American armies invade Italy.
1944	D-day invasion of France. Butler Education Act provides for free state education, compulsory to age 15.
1945	End of war in Europe (8 May). General election; massive Labour victory; Attlee becomes Prime Minister.
1946	National Health Service established.
1947	Coal and other industries nationalized; end of British rule in India.
1948	Establishment of the National Health Service and Welfare State.
1949	NATO founded.
1953	Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
1956	Anglo-French invasion of Suez is followed by withdrawal.
1957	National Service (compulsory military service) abolished.
1959	Conservatives win with large majority.
1960	Government announces bid to join the Common Market.
1963	Profumo scandal. Philby is identified as the third Soviet spy in the Burgess and Maclean affair of 1951.
1964	Labour under Harold Wilson win narrow majority.
1965	Capital punishment abolished in Britain.
1966	General election; Labour win with much larger majority.
1967	Devaluation of the pound. Legalisation of abortion and homosexuality.
1969	British troops are sent into Northern Ireland.
1970	Conservatives under Edward Heath returned to office.
1971	Decimal currency replaces pounds, shillings, pence, and farthing.
1972	Prime Minister Heath announces direct rule in Northern Ireland. Stormont abolished. School-leaving age raised to 16.
1973	Britain enters European Common Market.
1975	Britain begins to exploit North Sea oil.
1976	Economic crisis; Britain obtains help from the International Monetary Fund. Callaghan becomes Prime Minister after Wilson’s resignation.
1977	Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
1978	‘Winter of Discontent’: strikes and shutdowns all over Britain.
1979	Conservatives under Mrs Thatcher elected.
1981	Social Democratic Party founded.
1982	Britain defeats Argentina in war over the Falkland Islands.
1983	General election; Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government is returned with massive majority.
1984	Miners’ strike lasts a year.
1986	Channel Tunnel treaty signed.
1987	General election; Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government again returned with a majority of over 100.
1990	Mrs Thatcher succeeded as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party by John Major.
1992	Britain signs the Maastricht Treaty on European Union.
1993	The single European market takes effect.
1994	Labour Party under the new leader, Tony Blair, abandons its commitment to public ownership of major utilities. Opening of the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
1997	Labour Party elected to power under Tony Blair with a massive majority.