History & Politics
Historical Dates incl Battles & Wars (Year they began or start/finish years)
- 490 BC - Battle of Marathon (Persians v Greeks)
- 480 BC - Battle of Thermopylae (Persians v Spartans)
- 410 AD - End of Roman rule in Britain
- 802 - Egbert became King (the year is open to debate)
- 871 - Alfred the Great became King
- 1066 - Battle of Hastings
- 1086 - The Domesday Book (list of property owners, drafted by William I - The Conqueror)
- 1170 - St Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was beheaded by Henry II (H is the 2nd letter of Thomas)
- 1215 - Magna Carta (Legal charter signed by King John, limiting his powers and protecting the people's privileges)
- 1264 - Battle of Lewes
- 1300s - Black Death (in Europe)
- 1314 - Battle of Bannockburn
- 1346 - Battle of Crecy
- 1348 - Black Death (in Britain)
- 1381 - Peasants' Revolt against Richard II
- 1415 - Battle of Agincourt
- 1431 - Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake, aged 19 by Henry VI in the Hundred Years' War (1350/1450 - roughly)
- 1455/85 - The War Of The Roses (House of Lancaster v York)
- 1485 - Battle of Bosworth
- 1492 - Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas (Caribbean)
- 1509/47 - King Henry VIII's reign
- 1513 - Battle of Flodden
- 1547 - Battle of Pinkie
- 1549 - Kett's Rebellion 1554 - Wyatt's Rebellion
- 1588 - Spanish Armada
- 1605 - Gunpowder Plot
- 1620 - Pilgrim Fathers landed in America on the Mayflower
- 1642 /51 - English Civil War
- 1649 - King Charles I was beheaded
- 1665 - Great Plague of London
- 1666 - Great Fire of London
- 1688 - Glorious Revolution (William III overthrew James II to become King of England)
- 1690 - Battle of the Boyne (fought between William III & James II)
- 1707 - Acts of Union signed by Queen Anne uniting England and Scotland creating 'Great Britain'.
- 1739 - War of Jenkins' Ear (Spain v Great Britain in The Americas)
- 1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie led the Jacobite Uprising against the British who were led by the Duke of Cumberland
- 1746 - Battle of Culloden
- 1773 - Boston Tea Party (which initiated the American War of Independence two years later)
- 1775 - American War of Independence (began)
- 1789 - Storming of the Bastille (start of the French Revolution)
- 1805 - Battle of Trafalgar
- 1812 - The War of 1812 (Britain v America)
- 1815 - Battle of Waterloo
- 1819 & 1837 - Victoria was born in 1819 and became Queen in 1837
- 1832 - Reform Act (William IV)
- 1833 - Slavery Abolition Act (William IV) driven by William Wilberforce
- 1836 - Battle of the Alamo (Davy Crockett died)
- 1840 - First Opium War (between the UK and China)
- 1840 - Queen Victoria married Prince Albert
- 1853 - Crimean War (began)
- 1861/65 - American Civil War
- 1865 - Salvation Army was founded by William Booth
- 1876 - Custer's Last Stand (at Little Big Horn against Native Americans led by Crazy Horse)
- 1906 - Labour Reforms: Education
- 1908 - Labour Reforms: Pension
- 1909 - Labour Reforms: Labour Exchange
- 1911 - Labour Reforms: National Insurance
- 1912 - Scott's fateful voyage to the South Pole
- 1912 - The Titanic went down
- 1914/18 - First World War
- 1916 - Battle of The Somme
- 1929 - The Wall Street Crash (President Hoover was the scapegoat for the subsequent 'Depression')
- 1937 - The Hindenburg airship went down
- 1939 - Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took Britain into World War II (WWII)
- 1939/45 - World War II
- 1941 December - Pearl Harbor
- 1944 June 6th - 'D-Day' (Normandy landings in France in World War II)
- 1948 - Prime Minister Clement Atlee created the National Health Service (NHS)
- 1949 - NATO formed (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
- 1950/53 - Korean War
- 1952 & 1953 - Elizabeth (born 1926) became Queen Elizabeth II on Feb 6th 1952 and was crowned on June 2nd 1953
- 1952 - Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne
- 1953 - Edmund Hillary was the first to climb Mount Everest
- 1956 - The Suez Crisis
- 1959/75 - Vietnam War
- 1960 - National Service in Britain ceased
- 1961 - Bay of Pigs, Cuba (unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro)
- 1961 to 1989 - The Berlin Wall's Lifespan
- 1963 - John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald
- 1969 - Armstrong landed on the Moon
- 1972 - Bloody Sunday (British Army killing 14 civil right protesters in Northern Ireland)
- 1981 - Charles & Di married
- 1982 - Falklands Conflict
- 1989 - The Berlin Wall came down
- 1989 - Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
- 1990 - Nelson Mandela was released from prison
- 1991 - Gulf War
