-
London theaters reopen
Under cromwell's puritan reign, acting was completely banned.
For nearly 20 years, the London theatres were closed to the public, but in 1660, when King Charles II at last returned from exile in Europe, the theatre started up again.
The new King enjoyed theatre and he issued a licence re-opening the theatres the moment he was back in England. -
Charles II is proclaimed king of England (crowned in 1661)
Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic, and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in Lo -
Plague claims more than 68,000 People in London
Also known as the Black Death, Many thought it was punishment from a wrathful god; who was displeased with the sins of man. THe catholic church became corrupted -
Great Fire destroys much of London
The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It threatened, but did not reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall, and most of the suburban slums. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. The death toll is unknown but traditionally thought to have been small -
Glorious: Revolution James II is succeeded by Protestant rulers of William and Mary
King James's policies of religious tolerance after 1685 met with increasing opposition by members of leading political circles, who were troubled by the king's Catholicism and his close ties with France. The crisis facing the king came to a head in 1688, with the birth of the King's son, James Francis Edward Stuart, on 10 June. This changed the existing line of succession by displacing the heir presumptive, his daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange, w -
Alexander Pope publishes part of The Rape of the Lock
a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellaneous Poems and Translations in May 1712 in two cantos, but then revised, expanded and reissued in an edition "Written by Mr. Pope" on 4 March 1714, a five-canto version,accompanied by six engravings. Pope boasted that the poem sold more than three thousand copies in its first four days.The final form of the poem was available in 1717 with the addition of Clariss. -
Swift publishes A Modest Proposal, protesting English treatment of the Irish poor.
Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as a pamphlet. At this time, and for many years afterward, Ireland was far poorer than England. Most people born there were Roman Catholics and employed as agricultural labourers or tenant farmers. The landlords were paid from the produce of the land, at rates which the workers could rarely afford. This ruling class were usually Protestants. Many of them were not born in -
Voltaire publishes Candide
A French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment.The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best; Candide: or, The Optimist; and Candide: or, Optimism. -
George III is crowned king of England; becomes known as the king who lost the American Colonies
His life and reign, which were longer than any other British monarch before him, were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of Britain's American colonies were soon lost in the American Revolutionary War. -
British Parliament passes Stamp Act for taxing American Colonies
The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. The money collected by the Stamp Act was to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains -
African American poet Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subject, Religious and Moral is published in london
is a collection of 39 poems written by Phillis Wheatley the first professional African-American woman poet in America and the first African-American woman whose writings were published.
Phillis Wheatley broke barriers as the first American black woman poet to be published, opening the door for future black authors. James Weldon Johnson, author, politician, diplomat and one of the first African-American professors at New York University, wrote of Wheatley that "she is not a great American poet—a -
Boston Tea Party occurs
The beginning of the the Boston Tea Party is often sourced to what the Colonists felt was an unfair tax on tea. This is only partly true. The Tea Party was a protest in reaction to a tax meant to help raise funds following the French and Indian War. But the tax was also a political power move on behalf of Parliament, meant to reassert control over the colonies, as well as an economic decision designed to bail out the floundering East India Company, a threshold of English commercial interests. -
Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, -
Napoleon heads revolutionary governemnt in France
The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies.
