History Timeline - Life in the United Kingdom
A Guide for New Residents
3rd Edition
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Here are all the important dates in chronological order, taken from all chapters.
This timeline should help you remember all the dates.
10,000 years ago
6,000 years ago
4,000 years ago
55 BC
AD 43
3rd and 4th
centuries AD
AD 410
AD 600
AD 789
1066
1066 – 1485
By 1200
1215
1284
Britain became permanently separated from the continent by the Channel
The first farmers arrived in Britain
Bronze Age. People learned to make bronze
Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Britain
Emperor Claudius led the Roman army in a new invasion of Britain
The first Christian communities began to appear in Britain
The Roman army left Britain
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established in Britain
Vikings first visited Britain
– An invasion led by William, the Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, the Saxon King of
England, at the
Battle of Hastings.
– William became king of England.
– Start of the Westminster Abbey as the coronation church
– The Tower of London was first built
This period is called the Middle Ages
The English ruled an area of Ireland known as the Pale, around Dublin
The Magna Carta was established
King Edward I introduced the Statute of Rhuddlan, which annexed Wales to the Crown of
England
1314
The Scottish, led by Robert the Bruce, defeated the English at the battle of Bannockburn.
1348
By mid-15th century
A disease, probably a form of plague, came to Britain
The last Welsh rebellion had been defeated
In England, official documents were being written in English, and English had become the
preferred language of the royal court and Parliament
By 1400
1450s
Battle of Agincourt: one of the most famous battles of the Hundred Years War. King Henry V’s
vastly outnumbered English army defeated the French.
The English left France
1455
A civil war, called the Wars of the Roses, was begun to decide who should be king of England
1415
1485
16th century
21 April 1509
1560
– The Wars of the Roses ended with the Battle of the Bosworth Field.
– King Richard III of the House of York was killed
– Henry Tudor, the leader of the House of Lancaster, became King Henry VII
Protestant ideas gradually gained strength in England, Wales and Scotland
Henry VIII became king of England
The predominantly Protestant Scottish Parliament abolished the authority of the Pope in
Scotland and Roman Catholic religious services became illegal
1603
The English defeated the Spanish Armada, which had been sent by Spain to conquer England
and restore Catholicism
James VI became King of England, Wales and Ireland
1605
A group of Catholics led by Guy Fawkes failed in their plan to kill the Protestant king
1606
1640
1641
The first Union flag was created
Charles I recalled Parliament to ask it for funds
The revolt in Ireland began
1588
1642
1646
1649
1658
May 1660
1665
1666
1679
1656
1680 – 1720
Civil war began between the king Charles I and Parliament
Charles I’s army was defeated at the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby
Charles I was executed
Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the new republic, died
Parliament invited Charles II to come back from exile in the Netherlands
Major outbreak of plague in London
A great fire destroyed much of London, including many churches and St Paul’s Cathedral
The Habeas Corpus became law
The first Jews to come to Britain since the Middle Ages settled in London
Many refugees called Huguenots came from France
1685
James became King James II in England, Wales and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland
1688
Important Protestants in England asked William, the Protestant ruler of the Netherlands, to
invade England and proclaim himself king
1689
The Bill of Rights confirmed the rights of Parliament and the limits of the king’s power
1690
1695
William defeated James II at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
Newspaper were allowed to operate without a government licence
18th century
1707
1721
1742
1745
1746
By the 1760s
1776
1782
1783
1786
1789
Late 1700s
18th and 19th
century
1800
1801
1805
1807
1810
1815
1832
1833
1837
1846
1847
1851
1854
New ideas about politics, philosophy and science were developed,called the “Enlightenment”
The Act of Union, known as the Treaty of Union in Scotland, was agreed, creating the Kingdom
of Great Britain
Sir Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister in British history
End of Sir Robert Walpole position as a Prime Minister
There was another attempt to put a Stuart king back on the throne in place of George I’s son,
George II
Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by George II’s army at the battle of Culloden, and escaped
back to Europe
They were substantial colonies in North America
13 American colonies declared their independence
Sake Dean Mahomet came to Britain
Britain recognised the American colonies’ independence
Sake Dean Mahomet moved to Ireland and eloped with an Irish girl called Jane Daly
There was a revolution in France
The Quakers set up the first formal anti-slavery group
The period of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, a rapid development of industry
The Act of Union created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Ireland became unified with England, Scotland and Wales
Britain won the Battle of Trafalgar against combined French and Spanish fleets
It became illegal to trade slaves in British ships or from British ports
Sake Dean Mahomet opened the Hindoostane Coffee House in George Street,London, the first
curry house to open in Britain
The French Wars ended with the defeat of the Emperor Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington
at the Battle of Waterloo
The Reform Act was first enacted
The Emancipation Act abolished slavery throughout the British Empire
Queen Victoria became queen of the UK at the age of 18
Repealing of the Corn
The number of hours that women and children could work was limited bylaw to 10 hour per
day
The Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park
Florence Nightingale went to Turkey and worked in military hospitals
1860
1867
1872
1870 and 1882
1853 – 1913
1870 – 1914
1889
1895
1896
1899 – 1902
1900
1901
1902
1903
1907
1913
1914
1916
1918
1920
1920s
1921
1922
1923
1927
1928
1929
1933
1935
1936
1939
1940s
1940
Florence Nightingale established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas’
Hospital in London
Another Reform Act was enacted
The first tennis club was founded in Leamington spa
Acts of Parliament gave wives the right to keep their own earnings and property
As many as 13 million British citizen left the country to settle overseas
Around120,000 Russian and Polish Jews came to Britain to escape persecution
Emmeline Pankhurst set up the Women’s Franchise League
The National Trust was founded
Films were first shown publicly in the UK
Boer War
Winston Churchill became a conservative MP
End of Queen Victoria’s reign
Motor-car racing started in the UK
Emmeline Pankhurst helped found the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)
– Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
The British government promised “Home Rule” for Ireland
– Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated
– Start of the First World War
– British attack on the Somme
– Uprising (the Easter Rising) against the British in Dublin
– Women over the age of 30 were given voting rights and the right to stand for Parliament
– End of the First World War
The Cenotaph, the centre piece to the Remembrance Day service, was unveiled
– Many people’s living conditions in the UK got better
– The television was developed by John Logie Baird
A peace treaty was signed between the British government and the Irish Nationalists
– Ireland became two countries-The BBC started radio broadcasts
– The Northern Ireland Assembly was established
R A Butler became a Conservative MP
The BBC started organising the Proms
– Women were given the right to vote at the age of 21, the same as men
– Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin
The world entered the “Great Depression”
– Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany
The first successful radar test took place
The BBC began the world’s first regular television service
– Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany.
– Mary Peters, a talented athlete, was born
– Sir Jackie Stewart, a Scottish former racing driver who won the Formula 1 world
championship three
times, was born
Roald Dahl began to publish books and short stories
– German forces defeated allied troops and advanced through France
– Winston Churchill became Prime Minister
– The British won the crucial aerial battle against the Germans,called “the Battle of Britain”
1941
– German invasion of the Soviet Union
– The United States entered the war when the Japanese bombed its naval base at Pearl
Harbour
– The Beveridge Report was commissioned
– R A Butler became responsible for education
1942
Publication of the report Social Insurance and Allied Services, known as the Beveridge Report
1949
– Allied forced landed in Normandy on the 6th of June
– Introduction of the Education Act, often called “The Butler Act”
– The Allies comprehensively defeated Germany
– The war against Japan ended
– Winston Churchill lost the General Election
– Alexander Fleming won the Nobel prize in Medicine
– The British people elected a labour government
– Clement Attlee became Prime Minister
Independence was granted to nine countries, including India, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka)
– Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health, led the establishment of the National Health Service
(NHS)
– People from the West Indies were invited to come to Britain and work
The Irish Free State became a republic
1950
The UK signed the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
1944
1945
1947
1948
1950s
1951
1952
1953
1954
1957
1959
1951 – 1964
1960s
1964
1966
1966/67
1967
1968
1969
1970
Early 1970s
1970s
1972
1973
1975
1976
– Period of economic recovery and increasing prosperity for working people
– The hovercraft was invented
Winston Churchill returned as Prime Minister
– Dylan Thomas wrote Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
– The Mousetrap, a murder-mystery play by Dame Agatha Christie, has been running in the
West End
since 1952
– Start of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign
The structure of the DNA molecule was discovered through work at British universities in
London and Cambridge
– First performance of Dylan Thomas’s radio play Under Milk Wood
– Sir Roger Bannister became the first man in the world to run a mile under four minutes
West Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands formed the European
Economic Community (EEC)
Margaret Thatcher was elected as a Conservative MP
Britain had a Conservative government
James Goodfellow invented the cash-dispensing ATM
Winston Churchill stood down
The English football team won the World Cup
Sir Francis Chichester was the first person to sail single-handed around the world
The first ATM was put into use by Barclays Bank in Enfield, north London
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been awarded since 1968
– The Concorde, the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft, first flew
– Monty Python introduced a new type of progressive comedy
– The Troubles broke out in Northern Ireland
Margaret Thatcher became a cabinet minister as the Secretary of State for Education and
Science
Britain admitted 28,000 people of Indian origin who had been forced to leave Uganda
Period of serious unrest in Northern Ireland
– The Northern Ireland Parliament was abolished
– Mary Peters won an Olympic gold medal in the pentathlon
The UK joined the European Economic Community
Margaret Thatcher was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party and so became Leader of
the Opposition
The Concorde, the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft, began carrying passengers
1978
1979
1984
1990s
1990
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2002
2003
The world’s first “test-tube baby” was born in Oldham,Lancashire
Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of the UK
– Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold medals for ice dancing at the Olympic Games
– The Turner Prize, celebrating contemporary art, was established
Britain played a leading role in coalition forces involved in the liberation of Kuwait
– Information was successfully transferred via the web for the first time
– Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
Sir Ian Wilmot and Keith Campbell lead a team which was the first to succeed in cloning a
mammal, Dolly the sheep
The Labour Party led by Tony Blair was elected
The Good Friday Agreement was signed
– The Northern Ireland Assembly was elected
– Creation of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament
– Mary Peters was made a Dame of the British Empire in recognition of her work
– Since 2000, British armed forces have been engaged in the global fight against international
terrorism and
against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended
– The Concorde, the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft, was retired from service
– The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien was voted the country’s best-loved novel
2004
Dame Ellen MacArthur became the fastest person to sail around the world single-handed
2006
The Welsh Assembly building was opened
– The Northern Ireland Assembly was reinstated
– Gordon Browntook over as Prime Minister
2007
2008
Forced Marriage Protection Orders were introduced for England, Wales and Northern Ireland
2009
British combat troops left Iraq
For the first time in the UK since 1974, no political party won an overall majority in the General
Election
2010
2011
2012
– The National Assembly for Wales has been able to pass laws in 20 areas without the
agreement of the
UK Parliament
– Protection Orders for forced marriages were introduced in Scotland
– Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France
– Mo Farah became the first Briton to win the Olympic gold medals in the 10,000 metres
– Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee (60 years as Queen)
– The public elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales