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Queen Anne's death
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George I is the king.
Soon after Queen Anne's death, Hanoverian George; an elderly and unprepossesing German who could speak no English arrived in England. The date is an approximation. -
Period: to
Jacobite Rising
The dates are an approximation. -
Period: to
Sir Robert Walpole, the First Prime Minister
He was from the Whig party. For 21 years he managed the Whig machine, preserving peace and developing the Cabinet system. -
Period: to
George II into power
He made no difference of the dependence of the Crown on the Whigs. -
Maritime war between the British Empire and Spain.
Walpole was forced against his will into maritime war with Spainn which soon involved a continental war in defence of Austria against France and most of the continental powers. As a result Walpole fell, his place being taken for the next twenty years by Henry Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle. The date is an approximation. -
End of the war
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Seven Years war of Prussia against France and Austria
The first years were disastrous: in America a British force was cut to pieces; in India the traders of Calcutta suffered the horror of the Black Hole; Frederick the Great of Prussia was surrounded by enemies; Minorca was lost and Admiral Byng shot 'pour encourager les autres'. The date is an approximation. -
Year of Victories
The naval victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay, of Minden in Hanover and, to crown all, Wolfe's capture of the central French citadel of Quebec. The date is an approximation as it was a period. -
Period: to
George III's reign.
A young man who gloried the name of Briton'$ and saw himself as the hero of Bolingbroke's Patriot King: a king who really ruled and chose whom he liked as his ministers. He resumed the Royal patronagen therefore, and the Whig oligarchs, deprived of the means that had kept them in power for nearly half a century, collapsed. -
Peace in Paris
France ceded all Canada to Britain and all her territory west of the thirteen colonies, while in India the French were reduced to two small trading stations. It was a tremendous acquisition of empire. -
Boston Tea Party
It was a political protest in Boston. The demonstrators, some disguised as American Indians, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. -
George Washington as the commander of the armed forces in the American colony.
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Declaration of the United States Independence
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France and Spain declared war on Britain.
France and Spain proclaimed themselves champions of American liberty and declared war on Britain. -
Peace was made
Britain ceded all her territory south of Canada to the thirteen colonies, which set about transforming themselves into the United States of America with Washington as their president. The date is an approximation. -
Watt invented the steam engine.
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Independence of the Thirteen American colonies
The independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. -
Founding of the colony of Georgia
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Period: to
William Pitt as the Prime Minister
With an incomparable grasp of world strategy and complete confidence in himself, began to organize the conduct of the war. -
Period: to
The Victorian age.
The Victorian era of British history (and that of the British Empire) was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain.
