In the same year…

This is not a comprehensive timeline. A few events, achievements or firsts have been chosen to give a flavour of what was happening in Britain and the world for significant years in the lives of those in the Narratives pages. Further suggestions, especially for any missing years, would be very welcome—please use the e-mail link in the footer.

  • 1983
  • The Miner’s strike is broken by the Thatcher government.
  • Mass breakout of nationalist prisoners from the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland.
  • 1958
  • The BankAmericard (later Visa) is launched as the first credit card.
  • Jack Kilby, working for Texas Instruments, builds the first integrated circuit, or microchip, USA.
  • 1941
  • Apr: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
  • Jun: German invasion of USSR.
  • Jul: Hitler orders Final Solution (extermination of Europe’s Jews).
  • Dec: Japan invades Philippines; fall of Hong Kong.
  • Dec: The USA enters WW2 following the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese.
  • 1937
  • Sino-Japanese war begins as Japan invades China.
  • Publication of On Computable Numbers by British Mathematician Alan Turing establishes theoretical basis for computers.
  • 1935
  • Percy Shaw patents Catseyes reflecting road studs, UK.
  • First experimental radar developed, UK.
  • 1928
  • Jawaharalal formally demands Indian independence from Britain.
  • Alexander Fleming discovers Penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, UK.
  • Women first allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, Amsterdam.
  • 1925
  • John Logie Baird transmits first television pictures, London.
  • US astronomer Edwin Hubble discovers galaxies beyond our own and that the universe is expanding.
  • 1923
  • Military coup in Spain: Primo de Rivera becomes dictator.
  • The world’s first electric domestic refrigerator, Sweden.
  • 1920
  • In USA women get the vote and prohibition starts (until 1923).
  • Chinese Communist Party founded.
  • 1901
  • Queen Victoria dies and is succeeded by her son, Edward VII.
  • Marconi sends the first wireless message across the Atlantic.
  • 1897
  • War breaks out between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
  • Cuba becomes autonomous but not fully independent from Spain.
  • 1895
  • Invention of wireless telegraphy (radio) by Guglielmo Marconi.
  • Auguste and Louis Lumière invent the cinematograph, the motion picture camera, and the projector.
  • 1893
  • In Britain, the independent Labour Party holds its first meeting.
  • New Zealand is the first country in the world to give women the vote.
  • 1891
  • Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
  • Thousands of Jews are forced into Russian ghettoes.
  • 1888
  • James Keir Hardie founds the Scottish Labour Party.
  • Vincent van Gough moves to Arles, Provence, where he paints Sunflowers.
  • 1881
  • Assassination of Czar Alexander II provokes first pogroms against Russia’s Jews.
  • The first birth control clinic opens, Netherlands. The use of the diaphragm is encouraged, giving rise to the name Dutch cap.
  • 1874
  • In Britain, the Factory Act limits the working week to 56.5 hours.
  • The Parisien Impressionists, rejected by the Salon, exhibit their work independently.
  • 1871
  • London is connected to Shanghai by undersea electric cable.
  • Britain annexes the diamond region of Kimberley, South Africa.
  • Charles Darwin publishes The Descent of Man.
  • 1869
  • Leo Tolstoy completes War and Peace.
  • Last convict ship to Australia arrives in Freemantle.
  • 1867
  • The Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican movement, launch a bombing campaign in London.
  • Publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, an analysis of the economic injustices of the capitalist system.
  • 1861
  • English philosopher John Stuart Mill publishes Utilitarianism.
  • Pierre and Ernest Michaux build the first rotary pedal bicycle, France.
  • 1855
  • British and French Troops capture Sebastopol, the Russian naval base in the Black Sea.
  • Ottawa becomes Canada’s capital by royal decree.
  • 1854
  • Crimean War (–1856). Alliance of French, British and Turks victorious against Russians in Crimea.
  • The papal bull, Ineffabilis Deus, proclaims the Virgin Mary free of original sin.
  • 1851
  • Great Exhibition of Industry at Crystal Palace, London.
  • Reuters news service is founded in London.
  • 1850
  • The Atlantic slave trade, including clandestine sailings, begins to die out.
  • The British parliament passes the Australian Colonies Government Act, giving the colonies self-government.
  • 1849
  • California Gold Rush draws large numbers of migrants from Europe, Australia, Chile and China.
  • Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States’ first woman doctor.
  • 1848
  • A year of quickly suppressed revolutions in Europe.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.
  • 1846
  • Repeal of British corn laws.
  • The Saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.
  • 1841
  • The Straits Convention: leading European powers agree that the Bosporus and Dardanelles should be closed to all nation’s warships while the Ottoman Empire is at peace.
  • English travel agent Thomas Cook arranges his first excursion.
  • 1830
  • Some 20,000 slaves are transported from central Africa to Brazil.
  • A census in China records nearly 395 million inhabitants.
  • 1827
  • John Dalton presents the first formulation of atomic theory in his New System of Chemical Philosophy.
  • The Canton Register, the first English language newspaper, is published in Guangzhou.
  • 1826
  • A cholera epidemic begins in India that later spreads to Europe.
  • The first railroad opens in the USA at Quincey, Massachusetts.
  • 1823
  • The game of rugby is invented at Rugby School, Warwickshire.
  • Charles Macintosh invents waterproof fabric.
  • 1788
  • First British convicts sent to penal settlements in Australia.
  • First edition of The Times, previously The Daily Universal Register, was published in London.
  • 1785
  • Power loom for clothmaking revolutionises weaving.
  • First aerial crossing of English Channel in hydrogen balloon by Blanchard (France) and Jeffries (USA).
  • 1776
  • American Declaration of Independence.
  • Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is published.