Life in the UK Timeline
| Time | Events |
|---|---|
| The very beginning | |
| 8,000 BC | (10,000 years ago): Britain became permanently separated from Europe |
| 4,000 BC | (6,000 years ago): First farmers arrived |
| 2,000 BC | (4,000 years ago): Bronze age (people learned to make bronze) |
| 55 BC | Roman Julius Caesar tried (failed) to invade Britain |
| 43 AD | Roman Emperor Claudius successfully invaded (most of) Britain |
| 3rd and 4th centuries AD | The first Christian communities began to appear in Britain |
| 410 | Romans leave Britain |
| 600 | Anglo-Saxons establish in Britain (except much of Wales and Scotland) |
| 789 | Vikings first visited Britain, raiding coastal towns to take goods & slaves |
| 1000 - 1099 | |
| 1066 – 1485 | This period is called the Middle Ages |
| 1066 | – An invasion led by William, the Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, the Saxon King of England, at the Battle of Hastings (last time England was successfully invaded) – William became king of England – Start of the Westminster Abbey as the coronation church – The Tower of London was first built – Start of the “middle ages” |
| 1200 - 1299 | |
| By 1200 | The English ruled an area of Ireland known as the Pale, around Dublin |
| 1215 | Magna Carta: King John signed - makes the King subject to the law |
| 1284 | King Edward I introduced the Statute of Rhuddlan, which annexed Wales to the Crown of England |
| 1300 - 1399 | |
| 1314 | The Scottish, led by Robert the Bruce, defeated the English at the battle of Bannockburn |
| 1334 | Start of "100 years war" |
| 1348 | Black Death comes to Britain, kills 1/3 of population |
| 1400 - 1499 | |
| By 1400 | – In England, official documents were being written in English, and English had become the preferred language of the royal court and Parliament – Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Canterbury Tales |
| 1415 | 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 |
| By 1450 | The last Welsh rebellion had been defeated |
| 1450s | England "left" France (end of "100 years war") |
| 1455 | A civil war, called the Wars of the Roses, between houses of York and Lancaster, was begun to decide who should be king of England |
| 1485 | – 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 – End of the “middle ages” |
| 1500 - 1599 | |
| 1509, 21 April | Henry VIII became king of England |
| 1560 | – The predominantly Protestant Scottish Parliament abolished the authority of the Pope in Scotland and Roman Catholic religious services became illegal – Mary Queen of Scots (Catholic) flees to England → imprisoned for 20 years then executed |
| 1564 | Williams Shakespeare born |
| 1588 | English Sir Francis Drake defeat Spanish Armada (a large fleet of invading ships), which had been sent by Spain to conquer England and restore Catholicism |
| 16th century | Protestant ideas gradually gained strength in England, Wales and Scotland |
| 1600 - 1699 | |
| 1603 | Elizabeth I dies childless, James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England, also 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 | First union flag created |
| 1616 | William Shakespeare dies |
| 1640 | King Charles I recalls parliament to ask it for money (After ruling without Parliament’s approval for 11 years) |
| 1641 | The revolt in Ireland began |
| 1642 | Civil war begins between Roundheads (Cromwell, Parliament) and Cavaliers (the King Charles I) |
| 1643 | Isaac Newton born |
| 1646 | King Charles I’s army was defeated at the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, civil war ends |
| 1649 | – King Charles I executed by beheading, Cromwell becomes “Lord Protector” – Oliver Cromwell brutally suppresses Irish rebellion |
| 1656 | The first Jews to come to Britain since the Middle Ages settled in London |
| 1658 | Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the new republic, died |
| 1660, May | – Parliament invited Charles II to come back from exile in the Netherlands – “The Restoration”: Charles II instated as king |
| 1665 | Major outbreak of plague in London |
| 1666 | A great fire destroyed much of London, including many churches and St Paul’s Cathedral |
| 1679 | The Habeas Corpus became law |
| 1680 - 1720 | Many refugees called Huguenots came from France |
| 1685 | Charles II dies, Catholic James II becomes King in England, Wales and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland |
| 1688 | Important Protestants in England asked William of Orange, the Protestant ruler of the Netherlands, to invade England and proclaim himself king William III |
| 1689 | The Bill of Rights confirmed the rights of Parliament and the limits of the king’s power |
| 1690 | William defeated James II at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland |
| 1695 | Newspapers allowed to operate without government license |
| 1700 - 1799 | |
| 1707 | The Act of Union, known as the Treaty of Union in Scotland, was agreed, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain |
| 1714 | Queen Anne dies, Parliament chose German George I as king |
| 1721 | Sir Robert Walpole becomes first Prime Minister in British history, until 1742 |
| 1727 | Isaac Newton dies |
| 1732 | Richard Arkwright born. Efficiently ran factories |
| 1742 | End of Sir Robert Walpole position as a Prime Minister |
| 1745 | Bonnie Prince Charlie attempts to invade & become king, supported by Scottish clans |
| 1745 | There was another attempt to put a Stuart king back on the throne in place of George I’s son, George II |
| 1746 | Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by George II’s army at the battle of Culloden, and escaped back to Europe. Clans lose a lot of power |
| 1759 | – Robert Burns born - the Bard, wrote Auld Lang Syne – Sake Dean Mahomet born in Bengal region in India |
| By the 1760s | Substantial colonies in North America |
| 1776 | 13 American states declare their independence |
| 1782 | Sake Dean Mahomet came to Britain |
| 1783 | Britain recognised the American colonies’ independence |
| 1786 | Sake Dean Mahomet moved to Ireland and eloped with an Irish girl called Jane Daly |
| 1789 | France (Napoleon) declares war on Britain |
| 1789 | There was a revolution in France |
| 1792 | Richard Arkwright dies |
| 1796 | Robert Burns dies |
| Late 1700s | The Quakers set up the first formal anti-slavery group |
| 18th century | New ideas about politics, philosophy and science were developed, called the “Enlightenment” |
| 1800 - 1899 | |
| 1800 | The Act of Union created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| 1801 | Ireland became unified with England, Scotland and Wales |
| 1805 | Britain wins Battle of Trafalgar against combined French and Spanish fleets (Nelson dies) |
| 1807 | It became illegal to trade slaves in British ships or from British ports |
| 1810 | – Sake Dean Mahomet opened the Hindoostane Coffee House in George Street,London, the first curry house to open in Britain – Introduced “shampooing” head massage |
| 1815 | The French Wars ended with the defeat of the Emperor Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo |
| 1832 | The Reform Act was first enacted |
| 1833 | Emancipation act outlaws slave trading throughout British Empire |
| 1837 | Queen Victoria became queen of the UK at the age of 18 |
| 1846 | Repealing of the Corn |
| 1847 | The number of hours that women and children could work was limited bylaw to 10 hour per day |
| 1851 | |
| 1851 | – Mahomet dies – The Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park |
| 1853 – 1913 | As many as 13 million British citizen left the country to settle overseas |
| 1854 | Florence Nightingale went to Turkey and worked in military hospitals |
| 1860 | Florence Nightingale established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London |
| 1867 | Another Reform Act was enacted |
| 1870 – 1914 | Around120,000 Russian and Polish Jews came to Britain to escape persecution |
| 1872 | The first tennis club was founded in Leamington spa |
| 1889 | Emmeline Pankhurst set up the Women’s Franchise League |
| 1895 | The National Trust was founded |
| 1896 | Films were first shown publicly in the UK |
| 1899 – 1902 | Boer War |
| 18th and 19th century | The period of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, a rapid development of industry |
| 1900 - 1909 | |
| 1900 | Winston Churchill became a conservative MP |
| 1901 | End of Queen Victoria’s reign |
| 1902 | Motor-car racing started in the UK |
| 1903 | Emmeline Pankhurst helped found the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) |
| 1907 | – Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature |
| 1910 - 1919 | |
| 1913 | The British government promised “Home Rule” for Ireland |
| 1914 | – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated – Start of the First World War |
| 1916 | – British attack on the Somme – Uprising (the Easter Rising) against the British in Dublin |
| 1918 | – Women over the age of 30 were given voting rights and the right to stand for Parliament – End of the First World War |
| 1920 - 1929 | |
| 1920 | The Cenotaph, the centre piece to the Remembrance Day service, was unveiled |
| 1920s | – Many people’s living conditions in the UK got better – The television was developed by John Logie Baird |
| 1921 | A peace treaty was signed between the British government and the Irish Nationalists |
| 1922 | – Ireland became two countries-The BBC started radio broadcasts – The Northern Ireland Assembly was established |
| 1923 | R A Butler became a Conservative MP |
| 1927 | The BBC started organising the Proms |
| 1928 | – Women were given the right to vote at the age of 21, the same as men – Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin |
| 1929 | The world entered the “Great Depression” |
| 1930 - 1939 | |
| 1933 | – Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany |
| 1935 | The first successful radar test took place |
| 1936 | The BBC began the world’s first regular television service |
| 1939 | – 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 |
| 1940 - 1949 | |
| 1940 | – 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” |
| 1940s | Roald Dahl began to publish books and short stories |
| 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 |
| 1944 | – Allied forced landed in Normandy on the 6th of June – Introduction of the Education Act, often called “The Butler Act” |
| 1945 | – 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 |
| 1947 | Independence was granted to nine countries, including India, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) |
| 1948 | – 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 |
| 1949 | The Irish Free State became a republic |
| 1950 - 1959 | |
| 1950 | The UK signed the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms |
| 1950s | – Period of economic recovery and increasing prosperity for working people – The hovercraft was invented |
| 1951 – 1964 | Britain had a Conservative government |
| 1951 | Winston Churchill returned as Prime Minister |
| 1952 | – 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 |
| 1953 | The structure of the DNA molecule was discovered through work at British universities in London and Cambridge |
| 1954 | – 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 |
| 1957 | West Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands formed the European Economic Community (EEC) |
| 1959 | Margaret Thatcher was elected as a Conservative MP |
| 1960 - 1969 | |
| 1960s | James Goodfellow invented the cash-dispensing ATM |
| 1964 | Winston Churchill stood down |
| 1966/67 | Sir Francis Chichester was the first person to sail single-handed around the world |
| 1966 | The English football team won the World Cup |
| 1967 | The first ATM was put into use by Barclays Bank in Enfield, north London |
| 1968 | The Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been awarded since 1968 |
| 1969 | – 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 |
| 1970 - 1979 | |
| Early 1970s | Britain admitted 28,000 people of Indian origin who had been forced to leave Uganda |
| 1970 | Margaret Thatcher became a cabinet minister as the Secretary of State for Education and Science |
| 1970s | Period of serious unrest in Northern Ireland |
| 1972 | – The Northern Ireland Parliament was abolished – Mary Peters won an Olympic gold medal in the pentathlon |
| 1973 | The UK joined the European Economic Community |
| 1975 | Margaret Thatcher was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party and so became Leader of the Opposition |
| 1976 | The Concorde, the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft, began carrying passengers |
| 1978 | The world’s first “test-tube baby” was born in Oldham, Lancashire |
| 1979 | Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of the UK |
| 1980 - 1989 | |
| 1984 | – Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold medals for ice dancing at the Olympic Games – The Turner Prize, celebrating contemporary art, was established |
| 1990 - 1999 | |
| 1990 | – Information was successfully transferred via the web for the first time – Iraqi invasion of Kuwait |
| 1990s | Britain played a leading role in coalition forces involved in the liberation of Kuwait |
| 1996 | Sir Ian Wilmot and Keith Campbell lead a team which was the first to succeed in cloning a mammal, Dolly the sheep |
| 1997 | The Labour Party led by Tony Blair was elected |
| 1998 | The Good Friday Agreement was signed |
| 1999 | – The Northern Ireland Assembly was elected – Creation of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament |
| 2000 - 2009 | |
| 2000 | – 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 |
| 2002 | The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended |
| 2003 | – 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 |
| 2007 | – The Northern Ireland Assembly was reinstated – Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister |
| 2008 | Forced Marriage Protection Orders were introduced for England, Wales and Northern Ireland |
| 2009 | British combat troops left Iraq |
| 2010 - present | |
| 2010 | For the first time in the UK since 1974, no political party won an overall majority in the General Election |
| 2011 | – The National Assembly for Wales has been able to pass laws in 20areas without the agreement of the UK Parliament – Protection Orders for forced marriages were introduced in Scotland |
| 2012 | – 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 |