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American Declaration of Independence
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Edmund Cartwright patents a power loom
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French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (which says nothing about slaves or women)French Revolution
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Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man is published
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First steam locomotive is operating at Pennydarren, Wales
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Chartism, a working-class movement for male voting and other rights
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Meiji (‘enlightened rule’) Restoration in Japan; feudalism is abandoned and capitalism embraced
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German unification after the franco-prussian war leading to germany's rise as an imperial power
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Guglielmo Marconi invents the wireless (radio)
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Russo-Japanese War; Japan defeats Russia