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London theaters reopens: actresses appear on stage for the first time.
Until the coronation of England’s following monarch, James I, theatre in England was considered akin to prostitution, thievery and vagrancy. All theatres in London were required to be built outside the city walls along with brothels, prisons and lunatic asylums. -
Charles II is proclaimed king of England
England’s longest-ruling monarch before Queen Victoria, King George III (1738-1820) ascended the British throne in 1760 -
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 -
Great Fire destroy much of London.
The Great Fire of London began on the night of September 2, 1666, as a small fire on Pudding Lane, in the bakeshop of Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II. At one o'clock in the morning, a servant woke to find the house aflame, and the baker and his family escaped, but a fear-struck maid perished in the blaze -
Glorious (Bloodless): Revolution James II is succeeded by Protestant rulers of William and Mary.
To end the Glorious Revolution, William and Mary signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This action both signaled the end of several centuries of tension and conflict between the crown and parliament, and the end of the idea that England would be restored to Roman Catholicism, King William being a Dutch Protestant leader. -
Alexander Pope published parts of "The Rape of the Lock".
The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an actual incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic recusant Catholic families, at a time in England. -
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 Publick commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729 -
Voltaire publishes Candide.
The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: or, Optimism (1947). 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
George III is crowned king of England; becomes known as the king who lost the American Colonies. -
British Parliament passes Stamp Act for taxing American Colonies.
The American Revolution was precipitated, in part, by a series of laws passed between 1763 and 1775 that regulating trade and taxes. This legislation caused tensions between colonists and imperial officials, who made it clear that the British Parliament would not address American complaints that the new laws were onerous. British unwillingness to respond to American demands for change allowed colonists to argue that they were part of an increasingly corrupt and autocratic empire in which their t -
African American poet Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subject, Religious and Moral is published in London
Although she was an African slave, Phillis Wheatley was one of the best-known poets in prenineteenth-century America. Pampered in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems, and paraded before the new republic's political leadership. -
Boston Tea Party occurs.
The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773. The Boston Tea Party happened in 3 British ships in the Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party took place because the colonists did not want to have to pay taxes on the British tea. -
A Vindication of the Right of Women.
Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. -
Napoleon heads revolutionary government in France.
After a series of whirlwind victories, General Bonaparte led his victorious army into Milan on May 5, 1796. The Milanese greeted him as a heroic liberator, the general who freed them from the rule of the Austrian emperor Francis I.
