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London theaters reopen; actresses appear onstage for the first time
By the Edwardian era, women were a necessary and accepted part of the theatre community. Actresses were celebrities, and their profession a highly respected and reputable one - even to the point of a number of actresses marrying into the nobility -
Charles II is proclaimed king of England (crowned in 1661
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 London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. -
Plague claims more than 68,000 people in London
The Great Plague, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long time period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in Europe in 1347, the first year of the Black Death, an outbreak which included other forms such as pneumonic plague, and lasted until 1750 -
Great fire destorys much of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666.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. -
Glorious(Bloodless): Revolution James II is succeeded by Protestant rulers of William and Mary
They replaced James II (& VII), Mary's father, who fled the country. Parliament offered William and Mary a co-regency, at the couple's behest. After Mary died in 1694, William ruled alone until his death in 1702. -
Alexander Pope publishes part of The Rape of the Lock.
The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an actual incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. -
Swift publishes A Modest Proposal, protesting English treatment of the Irish poor
A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. -
Voltaire publishes Candide
Candide is characterised by its sarcastic tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious Bildungsroman, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact -
George III is crowned king of England; becomes known as the king who lost the American Colonies
He had a very loving and devoted wife who would stand by his side through it all. However, the constant warring began to grate on him, and finally, after losing the American Colonies and the respect of not only the foreign nations but also his own, even his wonderful wife was not enough to keep him from going insane before his death. -
British Parliament passes the Stamp Act for taxing American Colonies
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. 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 -
African American poet Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subject, Religious and Moral is publsihed in London
The publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) brought her fame both in England and the American colonies; figures such as George Washington praised her work. During Wheatley's visit to England with her master's son, the African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in his own poem -
Boston Tea Party occurs
The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. -
Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was the first great feminist treatise. Wollstonecraft preached that intellect will always govern and sought “to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body -
Napoleon heads revolutionary government in France
The French revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire.
