A short overview over British history.
Timeline |
What happened there |
500,000 BC |
People migrate to Britain from Europe |
6500 BC |
The land bridge joining Britian to Europe is flooded as the sea level rises. Britain becomes an Island |
5000 BC |
Beginning of Neolithic period: emergence of farming, stone axes, pottery |
3200 BC |
Skara Brae, perhaps the finest and best preserved Neolithic village in Europe, was settled as a farming community between 3200-2200 |
2500 BC |
Beginning of Bronze Age: great stone circles begin to emerge |
1500 BC |
Farm houses are constructed and stone circles fall into disrepair |
1000 BC |
Earliest hill forts are constructed; fortification of farms increases; elaborate artwork appears in the form of decorations |
600 BC |
Beginning of Iron Age |
500 BC |
Celtic customs and crafts spread across England |
150 BC |
The use of metal coinage begins |
55 BC |
Julius Caesar invades Britain |
43 AD |
Roman Emperor Claudius conquers England, making part of the vast Roman Empire |
60 |
Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, revolts against the Roman army |
63 |
Joseph of Arimathea travels to Glastonbury |
77 |
Julius Agricola becomes the first Imperial Governor for Britain |
122 |
Construction begins on Hadrian's Wall |
140 |
Romans conquer Scotland |
142 |
Construction begins on Antonine's Wall |
350 |
Picts and Scots attack the border areas |
383 |
Rome appoints Magnus Maximus as emperor in Britain while conquering Gaul, Spain, and Italy |
410 |
Probable end of Roman occupation of Britain |
410 |
St. Patrick begins mission in Ireland |
432 |
Irish Scots arrive in Pictland |
450 |
Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of Roman Emperor Constantine, rises to power against Vortigern |
500 |
Death of King Arthur (according to legend) |
537 |
St. Columba arrives on Iona and founds the Celtic Christian Church |
563 |
St. Augustine arrives in Kent and converts King Ethelbert to Roman Catholicism |
597 |
Founding of St. Paul's Cathedral in London |
722 |
Bede writes his Ecclesiastical History |
731 |
Book of Kells was written |
740 |
King Offa orders a dyke to be constructed along the Welsh border |
750 |
Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf written |
800 |
Alfred "The Great" crowned as the first king of a unified England |
843 |
Kenneth macAlpine becomes the first scottish king |
871 |
King Aethelred "The Unready" pays the Vikings not to attack |
926 |
Danelaw is conquered by the Saxons |
1002 |
Lady Godiva rides naked through Coventry in protest of taxes |
1040 |
Crowning of Edward the Confessor |
1042 |
Construction begins on Westminster Abbey |
1066 |
Death of Edward the Confessor. William of Normandy "The Conqueror" becomes first Norman King of England following the Battle of Hastings |
1067 |
Construction begins on the Tower of London |
1086 |
The Domesday Book is written |
1099 |
Christian Crusaders capture Jerusalem |
1100 |
Henry I. ascends throne following the assassination of his brother, William II. |
1118 |
Hugues de Payens founds the order of Knights Templars |
1170 |
Murder of Thomas à Becket at the alter of Canterbury Cathedral |
1191 |
Richard I "The Lionheart" declares that bodies unearthed at Glastonbury Abbey are those of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere |
1196 |
William Fitz Osbert was the first hanging at Tyburn |
1209 |
Cambridge University founded |
1215 |
English nobles force King John to sign the Magna Carta |
1264 |
Simon de Montfort defeats Henry III. at the Battle of Lewes |
1290 |
Edward I. expels all Jews from England |
1291 |
Scottish nobles allow King Edward of England to select the next Scottish King and declare allegiance to the English crown |
1298 |
King Edward defeats William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk, retaining his hold on Scotland |
1301 |
Edward I. invests his son as the Prince of Wales |
1305 |
William Wallace is captured and executed for treason |
1314 |
Robert Bruce defeats Edward II. at Bannockburn |
1320 |
Declaration of Arbroath (6.4.1320) |
1346 |
Edward III. invades France, starting the Hundred Years War, and wins at the Battle of Crécy |
1347 |
The English capture Calais. Bubonic Plague, which has been ravaging the Continent, reaches England |
1356 |
Edward, The Black Prince, defeats the French at the Battle of Poitiers |
1381 |
The Peasants Revolt in England |
1387 |
Geoffrey Chaucer begins writing The Canterbury Tales |
1415 |
Henry V. invades France and defeats French forces at Agincourt |
1429 |
A French force, led by Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), relieves the siege of Orléans |
1431 |
Joan of Arc burned at the stake in Rouen as a heretic; Henry VI. was crowned as King of France |
1453 |
End of the Hundred Years War |
1455 |
War of the Roses begins between the royal houses of York and Lancaster |
1485 |
Richard III. is killed by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field, effectively ending the War of the Roses |
1513 |
The Scottish army is defeated at The Battle of Flodden Field (9.9.1513) |
1517 |
Start of the Protestant Reformation |
1529 |
King Henry VIII. begins to cut ties with the Roman Church |
1534 |
The Church of England is officially formed |
1539 |
Dissolution of Glastonbury Abbey |
1554 |
Lady Jane Grey was executed |
1555 |
England returns to Roman Catholicism under Queen Mary; protestants are persecuted and more than 300 are burned at the stake |
1558 |
England looses their longtime possession of Calais |
1559 |
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots lays claim to the English throne |
1563 |
Anglican church established in England |
1570 |
Sir Francis Drake sails to the West Indies |
1587 |
Elizabeth I. orders the execution of Mary Stuart |
1588 |
The Spanish Armada is defeated by a much smaller English fleet under the command of Sir Walter Drake, Lord Howard of Effingham, and Sir John Hawkins |
1605 |
The Gunpower Plot, an attempt to blow up Parliament by Catholic conspirators, included Guy Fawkes, was discovered |
1607 |
Virginia founded as the first colony in the New World |
1611 |
Kings James I.'s authorized version of the Bible is completed |
1620 |
Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts |
1642 |
Civil War breaks out |
1649 |
King Charles I. is executed; the Commonwealth is established and lasts until 1660 |
1653 |
Oliver Cromwell becomes "Lord Protector" of England |
1660 |
Charles II. is crowned King and the period of "Merry Olde England" begins |
1666 |
The Great Fire of London destroys much of the city |
1679 |
Act of Habeas Corpus passed, which forbade imprisonment without benefit of a trial |
1686 |
Alice Molland was the last in England to be burned at the stake for witchcraft |
1688 |
The Glorious Revolution |
1689 |
The English army was defeated by the Scottish army at The Battle of Killikrankie (27.7.1689) |
1692 |
The Glencoe Massacres took place (13.2.1692) |
1707 |
The Act of Union unites the kingdoms of England and Scotland; Scotland's governmental power is transferred to London |
1715 |
Start of the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland |
1721 |
Sir Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister |
1746 |
Bonnie Prince Charlie is defeated at the Battle of Culloden (16.4.1746) |
1752 |
Gregorian calendar is adopted in Britain |
1756 |
Start of the Seven Year's War |
1773 |
Boston Tea Party; Construction of the world's first cast iron bridge over the River Severn |
1775 |
Beginning of the American War of Independence |
1788 |
King George III. suffers his first episode of "madness," presumably the result of porphyria |
1789 |
Start of the French Revolution |
1796 |
Edward Jenner develops the first vaccination against smallpox |
1800 |
Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland creates the United Kingdom |
1803 |
Napoleonic Wars start; England declares war on France |
1805 |
Battle of Trafalgar in which Lord Admiral Nelson defeats French and Spanish fleets, but is killed in the conflict |
1813 |
Jane Austen completes Pride and Prejudice |
1815 |
Napoléon is defeated at Waterloo under the command of Lord Wellington |
1818 |
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein |
1821 |
The Metropolitan Police force was established |
1830 |
First major cholera epidemic in Great Britain |
1833 |
Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire |
1845 |
Beginning of the severe Irish Potato Famine that kills more than one million people |
1853 |
Vaccination against smallpox becomes compulsory |
1854 |
Start of the Crimean War in which Florence Nightingale and battlefield nurses rise to fame |
1863 |
The London Underground opens |
1868 |
The last fully public hanging in Great Britain |
1887 |
Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebration |
1888 |
Jack the Ripper terrorizes the Whitechapel district in London |
1899 |
Beginning of the Boer War in South Africa |
1901 |
Queen Victoria dies ending an era that spanned over half a century |
1902 |
The Boer War ends with British victory over Dutch settlers in South Africa |
1914 |
Start of the First World War |
1918 |
Great Britain defeats Germany |
1920 |
The Republic of Ireland gains independence |
1939 |
Start of the Second World War |
1947 |
Indian and Pakistan gain independence |
1948 |
Start of National Health Service |
1952 |
The reign of Queen Elisabeth II starts |
1972 |
Britain imposes direct rule on Northern Ireland |
1982 |
The Falklands War begins between Britain and Argentina |
1994 |
Construction of the Channel Tunnel "Chunnel" between England and France completed |
1999 |
The death penalty was formally abolished in the United Kingdom |
2001 |
Landslide victory of Labour party in Great Britain. Labour party gets the majority in the parliament |
2002 |
In autumn the new parliament building in Edinburgh is opened |
