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Spinning Jenny
The Spinning Jenny, invented by James Hargreave, helped revolutionise the process of cotton spinning. Previously, cotton spinning was a slow process as only one thread could be spun at a time on a spinning wheel however the spinning jenny had eight spindles which the thread was spun on, you only needed to turn a wheel and it would create 8 threads at once. -
James Watt's steam engine
James Watt modified the Newcomen steam engine to improve its efficiency. This steam engine would eventually become one of the most important inventions in the industrial revolution, helping to give power to nearly everything. Watt had his invention and design ready but he went through a financial struggle as he tried to commercialize it, he eventually joined a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775 and this company and invention became very successful -
Declaration of Independence
On July 4th 1776, the continental congress signed and adopted which severed the 13 American colonies political connections and ties with Great Britain. Before this treaty was signed, the Americans and British were engaging in a revolutionary war as more and more began to seek independence from Britain and to no longer be ruled by the monarchy. This revolutionary war went on for 7 years until the treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 with Britain recognising America as an independent nation. -
First fleet arrive in Australia
In 1787, 11 ships full of convicts and soldiers left Portsmouth, England, to begin their voyage to the recently discovered Australia were the convicts would be left to serve their time. After nearly three months at sea, they arrived at Botany Bay Australia on the 24th of January 1788, where they were not given a very warm welcome by the traditional landowners, the Aboriginal people -
French revolution
The French revolution was a period of political unrest, where the French people overthrew the monarchy and took control, this event started in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s. This event was brought on by anger of the people, from the nearly bankrupt nation to high taxes and extravagant spending by the royals, the french were fed up. In 1792, a group of extremists arrested the king, King Louis XVI and in 1793 send both King Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette to death by guillotine -
Cotton Gin
In 1793, inventor Eli Whitney patented the Cotton Gin, the cotton gin was an invention that revolutionized the production o cotton by speeding of the process of removing seeds from the cotton. Before this invention, this word of deseeding was often very long and took lots of manual labour. -
Industrial revolution spread to America
As Great Britain was making rapid advancements, these ideas quickly spread to other countries. Many historians believe that the industrial revolution began in America in 1793 with Samuel Slater opening the first Industrial mill in America, with a design that was as heavily borrowed from the British. -
Luddite riots
The Luddite riots began in Nottinghamshire in 1811 and quickly spread across the country. In some areas of Britain, the workers were protesting against all the new machines that they feared would replace them, in other parts of Britain, the workers were protesting against wage reductions. These workers sent threatening letters to employers and would destroy the new machines. Breaking machines was made punishable by death in 1812 but very little arrests were ever made. -
SS Archimedes
The SS Archimedes is the world's first successful screw-propelled steamship. It was designed by Edward Pascoe and constructed by Henry Wimshurst. The first-ever test trip was done down the river from the London bridge and it accumulated many spectators -
The Australian Goldrush
A prospector had found flecks of gold in a waterhole near Bathurst, New South Wales and soon more gold was found in the surrounding areas and other states like Victoria. Very quickly, people from all around the world came to Australia by ships to try their luck at finding some gold, as many as 500,000 people flocked to the goldfields. -
First transatlantic telegraph
While the telegraph had first been invented by Samuel, F B Morse along with morse code in 1832. In 1854 Cyrus West Field thought of the idea of taking this invention across the ocean, laying a well-insulated cable along the ocean floor. Multiple people all worked together with Cyrus to make this invention possible and after a few weak, unsuccessful attempts to create the permanent telegraph, finally in 1866, they succeeded in laying the first permanent telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean -
The telephone
Alexander Graham Bell is often credited for his invention of the telephone. Bell was the first to patent it on March 7th 1876 and three days later he and Thomas Watson successfully tested their invention and made the first-ever call on the telephone -
First successful flight
On December, 17th, 1903. Orville Wright flew the first-ever powered aeroplane over a beach in North Caroline, the flight lasted for 12 seconds and 3 more flights were done that day. They had already done over 700 glided flights and then decided to start making and designing their own powered flight, which was a historic and very important invention. -
Henry Ford production line
The creation of Henry Fords assembly line forever changed the concept of manufacturing. The assembly line used a sequence of specialised workers repeating the same task on different items over and over again. This made the process much faster and cheaper to do, which allowed for the items made, to be sold at a lower price. This production line method is still used very often today -
World War I
The beginning of World War I often marks the end of Britains 'golden age' and the end of the industrial revolution. However, many of the inventions made during the industrial revolution were used and helped all sides during WWI
