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2800 BCE
2800 – 2500 BC: Stonehenge
Construction of Stonehenge begins by the Beaker Folk -
500 BCE
Celtic migration into the isles begins
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Period: 43 to 77
The Roman Empire conquers Britain under emperor Claudius
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122
Construction of Hadrian’s Wall begins
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410
Rome is sacked by the Goths, forcing the Roman legions to abandon Britain
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449
First invasions of Angles and Saxons
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516
Legendary King Arthur halts the Anglo-Saxon invasions at the battle of Badon.
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597
King Ethelberht of Kent is the first English king convert to Christianity
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655
The Kingdom of Northumbria defeats the kingdom of Mercia at the Battle of the Winwaed
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793
Vikings raid Britain for the first time at Lindisfarn
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828
King Egbert of Wessex is recognized as overlord among the English kings
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869
A great Viking Army invades the kingdom of Northumbria
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878
King Alfred of Wessex defeats the Vikings at the Battle of Edington
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Period: 1016 to 1035
Cnut the Great becomes King of Denmark, England, and Norway
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1066
William of Normandy defeats the Anglo – Saxons at the Battle of Hastings
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1167
The University of Oxford founded
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1189
King Richard I leads the Third Crusade into Jerusalem
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1209
The University of Cambridge founded
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1215
“Magna Carta” established, granting rights to the nobility and clergy
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1284
King Edward’s annexation of Wales
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Period: 1296 to 1328
Scottish rebellion of King Robert Bruce and William Wallace
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1320
Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland declares its independence
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Period: 1337 to 1453
The Hundred Year’s War with France
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1348
The Plague strikes England, losing over 50% of its population
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1415
King Henry V defeats a larger French army at the Battle of Agincourt
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1453
Decisive French victory at the Battle of Castillon
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Period: 1455 to 1485
Wars of the Roses. Civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York
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1485
The Scottish Education Act.
All barons submit their eldest sons to formal education. -
Period: 1485 to
House of Tudor reigns, bloom of the English Renaissance
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1492
Discovery of the Americas, Columbus lands in The Bahamas
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Queen Elizabeth I defeats the Spanish Armada at the Battle of Gravelines
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John Smith founds the colony of Virginia in North America
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William Shakespeare’s “First Folio” is published
The First Folio is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare's plays, collated and published in 1623, seven years after his death. Folio editions were large and expensive books that were seen as prestige items.
Shakespeare wrote around 37 plays, 36 of which are contained in the First Folio. Most of these plays were performed in the Globe, an open-air playhouse in London built on the south bank of the Thames in 1599. -
Period: to
English Civil War, conflict between Charles I and Parliament
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Period: to
The Commonwealth. England, Ireland and Scotland ruled as a Republic
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Great Fire in London destroys an estimated 90% of the city
The Great Fire, began on Sept. 2, 1666, blazed through the city for four days and destroyed most of the medieval city, which was then largely made out of wood. It is estimated that nearly 90% of the city’s 80,000 residents were left homeless and nearly 14,000 houses and buildings were destroyed. -
Isaac Newton presents his laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics
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The Glorious Revolution, King James II deposed by the Dutch Stadholder William III
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Period: to
War of the Spanish Succession, to halt the expansion of France
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The Act of Union.
The Acts of Union, passed by the English and Scottish Parliaments in 1707, led to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May of that year. The UK Parliament met for the first time in October 1707.
England and Scotland are “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”. -
Period: to
Seven years’ War, first global conflict between the European powers
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Captain James Cook lands in Australia and claims it a colony of the British Crown
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Period: to
The American Revolution: Colonists rebel against King George III
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Decisive victory of General George Washington at Siege of Yorktown
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Period: to
French Revolution
The fall of the monarchy and the rise of Napoleon.
During this period, French citizens radically altered their political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as the monarchy and the feudal system. -
Period: to
Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars, a series of wars between Napoleonic France and shifting alliances of other European powers produced a brief French hegemony over most of Europe. Along with the French Revolutionary wars, the Napoleonic Wars constitute a 23-year period of recurrent conflict that concluded only with the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon’s second abdication on June 22, 1815. -
Ireland is annexed into the United Kingdoms
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Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by British and Prussian troops
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Period: to
Victorian Era
A young woman of eighteen years old became queen of Britain. There were so many changes in society such as many British women and men became world-famous; using children as workers became illegal, education became free for everyone and the industrial cities were made safer and healthier. -
Period: to
The Opium Wars with the Qing dynasty
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Period: to
Great Potato Famine in Ireland
Queen Victoria and her government had many problems.
During this famine, potatoes were just one of many available foods, and the Irish depended on them in the nineteenth century.
The disease killed the potato plants and about 1 million Irish people
died because they had no food. -
The Bessemer Process allows Britain to become the industrial dominance in the world
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Queen Victoria incorporates the colonies of India into the British Empire
Britain changed greatly during the Victorian Age. At the end
of the period, there were electric lights, telephones, the London
underground and many things became more modern. -
Charles Darwin: a naturalist who publishes a book about human evolution
He publishes his book “On the Origin of Species”, the theory of evolution. -
Period: to
The British Empire is the largest empire in history
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Period: to
World War I
It began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder went into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan, and the United States (the Allied Powers). -
A British-French alliance engages the German army at the Battle of the Somme
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Ireland granted independence by Anglo-Irish Treaty
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Period: to
World War II
Also called Second World War, was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan; and the Allies: France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a major air campaign fought largely over southern England in the summer and autumn of 1940. After the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and the Fall of France, Germany planned to gain air superiority in preparation for an invasion of Great Britain. Ultimately, the Luftwaffe was defeated by Fighter Command, forcing Adolf Hitler to abandon his invasion plans. -
Decolonization of the British Empire begins
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Period: to
The Foundation of the Welfare State
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Period: to
The Cold War
During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers. -
Suez Crisis – The UK, France and Israel invade Egypt
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Period: to
The Troubles. Irish Republican Army (IRA) national conflict
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Britain joins the Common Market
The Treaty was signed by Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister, in Brussels on 22 January 1972. The European Communities Bill was then introduced in the House of Commons to give parliamentary assent to Britain's membership of the EEC. Although the bill itself consisted of only 12 clauses (accepting all previous EEC regulations, the Treaty of Rome, and the terms of entry), it was subject to some 300 hours of debate before becoming law. -
Period: to
Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister: she was the first British female Prime Minister. -
The Falklands Wars with Argentina
The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British-dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. -
The Election of New Labour
New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen in a draft manifesto which was published in 1996 and titled New Labour, New Life for Britain. It was presented as the brand of a newly reformed party that had altered Clause IV and endorsed market economics. -
Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in car accident in Paris
In the early hours of 31st August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died from injuries sustained earlier that day in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed, her partner, and Henri Paul, the driver, were pronounced dead at the scene. Her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was severely injured but survived the crash. -
England Riots
The 2011 England riots, widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, which saw looting, arson, as well as mass deployment of police, and the deaths of five people. -
Brexit
Brexit is an abbreviation of two English words: 'Britain' and 'exit' and refers to the withdrawal process of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). -
The Queen's Death
The first reign lasted 70 years. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch and the longest verified reign of any female sovereign in history. -
King Charles III
He acceded to the throne on 8 September 2022 after the death of his mother, Elizabeth II. He was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history and, at the age of 73, is the oldest person to assume the British throne.