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East India Company founded
On 31 December 1600, a group of merchants who had incorporated themselves into the East India Company were given monopoly privileges on all trade with the East Indies. The Company's ships first arrived in India, at the port of Surat, in 1608. -
Queen Elizabeth dies
Mary Stuart’s son, James I became the king of England. James I started the Stuart Dynasty. He believed in divine right and absolutism. He had to ask parliament for money to finance the government and his life style. -
James I dies
James I dies and his son, Charles I becomes king. The Petition of Rights came in while he was king to take away power from him. He got in a war with parliament and parliament won so he got executed. He was the first king to be publicly executed. -
The Glorious Revolution
James II was king at this time. Parliament was scared of becoming a catholic country so they got William of Orange, James II’s daughter’s husband, to come and invade and become king. James II fled to France and there was no bloodshed. This peaceful transfer of power was called the Glorious Revolution. -
The Steam Engine
The steam engine is termed as the defining innovation of the first industrial revolution in Britain. It was the energy behind advanced inventions in textiles and transport and was one of the primary causes for the transition from human power to machine power. -
Baron de Montesquieu publishes his book called "On The Spirit Of Laws".
In 1748, the Enlightenment philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu, published a book called "On The Spirit Of Laws' which talks about how there should be seperation of powers in a government and balance between power. These ideas were later put to use in the Constitution. -
Slave bailed out
Olaudah Equiano saved and traded enough money to buy his freedom for 45 american dollars. -
Spinning Jenny
The Spinning Jenny was a multi spindle spinning frame invented by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Lancashire in England. Hargreaves patented a sixteen spindle spinning jenny on July 12, 1770. -
The Americans declare independance from Britain.
In 1776, because of reasons such as "taxation without representation", the American colonists declared independance from the British monarchy through the Declaration of Independance. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it stated reasons for America to separate from Britain. -
Bread March
A spontaneous demonstration of Parisian women for bread. Turned into a March on the Palace of Versailles, where the King was. Palace guards were overwhelmed. The King and his family forced to come back to Paris. -
The French Revolution
Enlightenment ldeas like liberty, equality , and brotherhood had been heard across France. The people of the third estate knew they were being treated unfairly, so they made an oath that they wouldn't stop fighting until the caste system was fair. The first act of rebellion happened whe the people stormed the Bastille prison. -
Storming the Bastille
People stormed the Bastille prison where the gun powder was stored so that they could get some for their guns so that they could defend themselves. -
The Great Fear
Rumors that the federal aristocracy were sending hired brigands to attack peasants and pillage their land. -
Night Session
The National Assembly met, before the night was over. The feudal regime in France had been abolished. All Frenchman were, at least in principle, subject to the same laws and the same taxes and eligible for the same offices. -
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as linens, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing. -
Maximillian Robespierre dies
He was found guilty and was sent to the guillotine. He wasn’t arrested for treason. -
Interchangeable parts
Eli Whitney showed the government that it is a lot easier to make parts for guns instead of making full guns so that if one part of the gun is broken, you can just change that part out and it will work fine. -
Napoleon is Emperor
Napoleon is crowned Emperor of France by the Pope. There are stories that Napoleon crowned himself. -
Crowned King of Italy
With the proclamation of Empire in France, in May 1804, it was clear to politicians of the time, both French and Italian, that Italy could no longer remain as a republic. And so, on 17 March 1805, almost a year after the proclamation of Empire in France (and after two false starts), the Italian republic became the Kingdom of Italy – a particularly misleading expression, since the territory included in this realm was not the peninsular as a whole but merely Lombardy and the Emilia Romagna -
Slave Trade Bill
The Bill received Royal Assent on 25 March 1807. However, while this Act abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, slavery itself continued for another generation. It was not until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that slavery itself was eventually abolished. -
Greece gained independence
Greece gains its independence from the Ottoman Empire. -
Electrical telegraph
An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via dedicated telecommunication circuit or radio. The electrical telegraph, or more commonly just telegraph, superseded optical semaphore telegraph systems, thus becoming the first form of electrical telecommunications. -
Queen Victoria crowned queen
The coronation of Queen Victoria took place on Thursday 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom at the age of 18. -
Treaty of Nanjing Signed
The Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) was a peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–42) between the United Kingdom and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties. -
Use of Telegraph
On May 1, 1844, the Whig Party’s nomination of Henry Clay for U.S. President was telegraphed from the party’s convention in Baltimore to the Capitol Building in Washington. -
Use of Morse Code
On 24th of May 1844, the line was officially opened as Morse successfully sent the verse “What hath God wrought!“ in Morse code from Washington to Alfred Vail in Baltimore. -
The Potato Famine Begins
The Famine began quite mysteriously in September 1845 as leaves on potato plants suddenly turned black and curled, then rotted, seemingly the result of a fog that had wafted across the fields of Ireland. -
Second Opium War Begins
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the United Kingdom and the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860. -
The Indian Mutiny
The Indian Mutiny erupted in May 1857, when sepoys rose up against the British in Meerut and then massacred all the British they could find in Delhi. Uprisings spread throughout British India. It was estimated that less than 8,000 of nearly 140,000 sepoys remained loyal to the British. -
Internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine is a heat engine where the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. -
Queens husband dies
Albert, Prince Consort died on December 14, 1861, Windsor Castle, Windsor, United Kingdom -
President Louis Napoleon dies
He ruled until his defeat during the France-Prussian War in 1870 and was captured. He went into exile until his death. -
Incandescent light bulb
An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated to such a high temperature that it glows with visible light. The filament is protected from oxidation with a glass or fused quartz bulb that is filled with inert gas or a vacuum. -
The Berlin Conference Begins
The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, also known as the Congo Conference or West Africa Conference, regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power. -
The Boer War Begins
The South African Boer War begins between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. Minor fighting with Britain began in the 1890s, and in October 1899 full-scale war ensued. -
Australia gained independence
Federation. Australia became an independent nation on 1 January 1901 when the British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia was established as a constitutional monarchy. -
Queen Victoria dies
Queen Victoria dies of a hemorrhagic stroke on January 1, 1901 at Osborne House, East Cowes, United Kingdom. -
Russo-Japanese War Begins
The Russo-Japanese War was a war between the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire. It started in 1904 and ended in 1905. The Japanese won the war, and the Russians lost. The war happened because the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire disagreed over who should get parts of Manchuria and Korea. -
Treaty of Portsmouth Signed
The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The negotiations took place in August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and were brokered in part by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. -
Franz Ferdinand assassination
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and Franz Ferdinand's wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. -
World War I starts
World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). -
Christmas Truce
On December 7, 1914, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus of the war for the celebration of Christmas. The warring countries refused to create any official cease-fire, but on Christmas the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce. -
Italy switches sides
Italy and World War One. In the years that led up to World War One, Italy had sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance. On April 26th 1915, she came into the war on the side of the Triple Entente – Britain, France and Russia. -
Czar Nicholas II abdicated
In March 1917, the army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoye Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. -
March Revolution
In Russia, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar) begins on this day in 1917, when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of the czarist regime. -
The October Revolution
DescriptionThe October Revolution, officially known in Soviet historiography as the Great October Socialist Revolution and commonly referred to as the October Uprising, the October Coup, the Bolshevik Revolution. -
Last Czar dies
The imperial family fell out of favor with the Russian public long before their execution by Bolsheviks in July 1918. -
Russia pulls out
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918 between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
Mussolini was Elected
General elections were held in Italy on 6 April 1924. They were held under the Acerbo Law, which stated that the party with the largest share of the votes would automatically receive two-thirds of the seats in Parliament as long as they received over 25% of the vote. Mussolini got the majority of the votes. -
Wall Street Crash
The U.S. calls in their loans, causing economic depression and Germany and worldwide. This ruined the Dawes Plan which was Germany asking America for loans to help pay their reparations. -
Hitler is appointed Chancellor
Hitler's "rise" can be considered to have ended in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 in that month. -
Germany invades the Rhineland
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany. -
The Rape of Nanking
Nanjing Massacre, conventional Nanking Massacre, also called Rape of Nanjing, (December 1937–January 1938), mass killing and ravaging of Chinese citizens and capitulated soldiers by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army after its seizure of Nanjing, China, on December 13, 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War that preceded World War II. -
Night of Broken Glass
Kristallnacht or Reichskristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, Reichspogromnacht or simply Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians. -
Hitler invades Polland
On this day in 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. -
Germany attacks Holland, Belgium, and France
On this day in 1940, Hitler begins his Western offensive with the radio code word “Danzig,” sending his forces into Holland and Belgium. -
Operation Sea Lion
Operation Sea Lion, also written as Operation Sealion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe), was Nazi Germany's code name for the plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. -
Last use of the Necropolis Railway
The last recorded funeral carried on the London Necropolis Railway was that of Chelsea Pensioner Edward Irish (1868–1941), buried on 11 April 1941. -
Pearl Harbor
The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day. -
Heydrich was Assassinated
His success in “pacifying” the Czech population lulled Heydrich into a false sense of security, and on May 27, 1942, two Free Czech agents mortally wounded him with a bomb while he was riding in his car without an armed escort. He died June 4 in a Prague hospital.
