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London theaters reopen; actresses appear onstage for the first time
After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama. the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. This period saw the first professional female playwright, Aphra Behn. -
Charles II is proclaimed king of England (crowned in 1661)
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Charles II's father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II King on 5 February 1649, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 Sep -
Plague claims more than 68,000 people in London
The Great Plague, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people, almost a quarter of London's population. Plague is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium, which is usually transmitted through the bite of an infected rat flea. the first year of the Black Death, an outbreak which included other forms such as pneumonic plague, and lasted until 1750. -
Great Fire Destroys much of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It threatened, but did not reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches. -
Glorious (Bloodless): Revolution James II is sicceeded by Protestant rulers of William and Mary.
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau. William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England, in conjunction with the documentation of the Bill of Rights 1689. -
Alexander Pope publishes part of The Rape of the Lock
The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellaneous Poems and Translations in May 1712 in two cantos but then revised, expanded and reissued in an edition "Written by Mr. Pope" on 4 March 1714, a five-canto version (794 lines) accompanied by six engravings. -
Swift publishes A Modest Proposal, protesting English treatment of the Irish poor
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public. A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. -
Voltaire publishes Candide
Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. -
George III is crowned king of England; becomes known as the king who lost the American Colonies
George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors he was born in Britain. -
British Parliament passes Stamp Act for taxing American Colonies
The Stamp Act of 1765 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a direct tax on the colonies of British America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency. -
African American poet Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subject, Religious and Moral is published in London
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New England (published 1773) is a collection of 39 poems written by Phillis Wheatley the first professional African-American woman poet in America and the first African-American woman whose writings were published. -
Boston Tea Party occurs
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor. -
Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Women
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society. -
Napoleon heads revolutionary goverment in France
The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond.
