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Stael writes On Germany
Germaine de Stael extolled the spontaneity and enthusiasm of German writters and thinkers, and it had a powerful impact on the post-1815 generation in France. -
Quadruple Alliance formed
Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Britain form this alliance to defeat France. Agreed to restore the Bourbon dynasty, and raise the number of formidable barriers against renewed Frence agression. -
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Congress of Vienna
The peace sttlement created here stablished a balance-of-power principle and creates the German Confederation -
Revision of Corn Laws in Britain
The new regulation prohibited the importation of foreign grains unless the price at home rose to improbable levels. This resulted in protests by radical intellectuals. -
Holy Alliance formed
Formed by Austria, Prussia and Russia, The alliance soon became a symbol of the repression of liberal and revolutionary movements all over Europe. -
2nd Peace of Paris & Renewal of Quadruple Alliance
Punishes France and establishes the Euopean "congress system." -
Carlsbad Decrees issued by German Confederation
Required the thirty-eight German member states to root out subversive ideas in their universities and newspapers and established a permanent committee with spies and informers to investigate and punish and liberal or radical organizations. -
Congress of Troppau
Metternich and Alexander I of Russia proclaim the principle of intervention to maintain autocratic regimes. -
Greece wins independence from Turks
Great Britain, Frace, and Russia finally declared Greece independent after being under Turkish influence since the fifteenth century. -
Constitutional Charter repudiated
Charles X repdiates the Constitutional Chater; insurection and collapse of the government follow. Louis Philippe succeeds to the throne and maintains a narrowly liberal regime until 1848. -
Reform Bill in Britain
Expands British electorate and encourages the middle class. The House of Commons had emerged as the all-important legislative body. The number of voters increased by about 50%, giving about 12% of adult men in Britain and Ireland the right to vote. -
Blanc writes Organization of Work
Urged workers to agitate for universal voting rights and to take control of the state peacefully. He believed that the state should set up government-backed workshops and factories to guarantee full employment. The right to work had become as sacred as any other right. -
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Great Famine in Ireland
As population and potato dependecy grew, conditions became more precarious and in 1845 the potato crop began failing. Widespread starvarion and mass fever epidemics followed. -
Ten Hours Act in Britain
Limited the workday for women and young people in factories to ten hours. -
Revolutions in Austria, France, and Prussia
All three revolutions were sparked by the one in Greece, but none were successful. -
Marx and Engles write The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles's work became the bible of socialism and stated that the "history of all previously existing society is the history of class struggles." -
Louis Pasteur: fermentation & pasteurization
He begins his study of fermentaion at the request of brewers. Using his microscope to develop a simple test that brewers could use to moniter the fermentation process and aviod spoilage, he found that the activity of these organisms could be surpressed by heating the beverage - by pasteurization. -
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Developement of the germ theory
The effctive control of communicable disease required a great leap forward in medical knowlege and the developement of the germ theory by Louis Pasteur was it. -
Flaubert writes Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert's novel tells the ordinary, even banal, story of a frustrated middle-class house wife who has an adulterous love affair and is betrayed by her lover. Without moralizing, Flaubert portrays the provincial middle class as petty, smug, and hypocritical. -
Darwin writes On the Origin of Species
He suggested how biological evolution might have occured and he argued that chance differences among the members of a given species help some survive while others die. Thus the variations that prove useful in the struggle for survival are selected naturally and gradually spread to the entire species through reproduction, -
John Stuart Mill writes On Liberty
Mill probed the problem of how to protect the rights of individuals and minorities in the merging age of mass electoral participation. He pleaded eloquently for the practical and moral value inherent in safeguarding individula differences and unpopular opinions. -
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Unification of Italy
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour returned to power in Italy in 1860 and gained Napoleon III's support by ceding Savoy and Nice to France. But to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the job of unification was only half done. Cvour used him to help turn popular nationalism in a conservative direction and Italy was finally unified. -
Freeing of Russian serfs
The first and greatest reform of Russia after 1850 under Alexander II. Human bondage was abolished forever, and the emancipated peasants recieved, on average, about half of the land. Yet they had to pay fairly high prices for their land, and because the land was owned collectively, each peasant village was jointly responsible for the payments of all the families in the village. -
Establishment of the Zemstvo
Members of this local assembly in Russia were elected by a three-class system of towns, peasant villages, and noble landowners. A zemstvo executive council dealt with locaal problems. Russian liberals hoped that this reforn would lead to an elected national parliament, but they were soon disappointed. -
Austro-Prussian War
Lasted only seven weeks, the reorganized Prussian army overran northern Germany and defeated Austria decisively at the Battle of Sadowa in Bohemia. Anticipating Prussia's future needs, Bismarck offered Austria realistic, even generous, peace terms. -
Mendeleev creates the periodic table
Chemists devisedways of measuring the atomic weight of different elements and Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev codified the rules of chemistry in the periodic law and the periodic table. -
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Franco-Prussia War
France last this war and was forced to pay a colossal indemnity of 5 billion francs and to cede the rich eastern province of Alsace and part of Lorraine to Germany. -
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Kulturkampf
Bismarck's attack on the Catholic church -
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Dostovski writes The Brothers Karamazov
In Feodor Dostoevski's great novel, four sons work knowingly or unknowingly to destroy their father. Later at the murder trial, one of the brothers claims to speak for all mankind and screams out, "Who doesn't wish his father dead?" -
First social security laws to help workers in Germany
Bismarck pushed through the Reichstag the first of several modern social security laws to help wage earners. The first laws established national sickness and accident insurence. -
"Bloody Sunday" in Russia
A massive crowd of workers and their families converged peacefully on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition to the tsar. Suddenly troops opened fire, killing and wounding hundreds. This event turned ordinary workers against the tsar and produced a wave of general indignation.
