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American Declaration of Independance
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Edmund Cartwright patents a power loom
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French Revolution
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Tom Paine's 'The Rights of Man' is published
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First Steam Locomotive is operating at Pennydarren, Wales
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Abolition of slavery in the British Empire
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Meiji ('enlightened rule') Restoration in Japan; feudalism is abandoned and capitalism embraced
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German unification after the Franco-Prussian War leading Germany's rise as an imperial power
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Guglielmo Marconi invents the wireless (radio)
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Russo-Japanese War; Japan defeats Russian