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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1845 | - 1845: Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people in two years
- 1845: Engels publishes 'The Condition of the Working Class in England'
- 1845: There are reckoned to be 210 accountants in London
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| 2 | 1846 | - 1846: End of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry. Whigs come to Power. Repeal of the Corn Laws
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| 3 | 1847 | - 1847: Flourens discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform
- 1847: Levi Strauss invents denim jeans
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| 4 | 1848 | - 1848: Major Chartist demonstration in London. Revolutions in Europe. Parliament passes the Public Health Act
- 1848: Karl Marx publishes 'The Communist Manifesto' and 'Das Kapital'
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| 5 | 1849 | - 1849: Howe patents the safety-pin
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| 6 | 1850 | - 1850: American Joel Houghton invented the first dishwasher. He made it out of wood, and gave it a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on the dishes inside. It didn't really work, but it did get the first "dishwasher" patent
- 1850: First machine-made paper bag
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| 7 | 1851 | - 1851: The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success
- 1851: Patent for Singer sewing machine issued
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| 8 | 1852 | - 1852: Death of the Duke of Wellington. Derby's first minority Conservative government. Aberdeen's coalition government is established
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| 9 | 1853 | - 1853: Potato crisps invented by a cook named George Crum.
- 1853: Florence Nightingale first recommended the regimen of cleanliness which dramatically reduced the death rate in hospitals
- 1853: Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory. Queen Victoria uses chloroform during birth of Prince Leopold. Gladstone presents his first budget
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| 10 | 1854 | - 1854: The Northcote-Trevelyan civil service report is published; and The Crimean War begins, as Britain and France attempt to defend European interests in the Middle East against Russia
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| 11 | 1855 | - 1855: John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump.
- 1855: End of Aberdeen's coalition government. Palmerston's first government comes to power
- 1855: Yale lock invented
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| 12 | 1856 | - 1856: Crimean War comes to an end. The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery
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| 13 | 1857 | - 1857: Cyrus Field made his first attempt at laying a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. In 1866, his fourth attempt was successful.
- 1857: The Second Opium War opens China to European trade. The Indian Mutiny erupts against British Rule on the sub-continent
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| 14 | 1858 | - 1858: Derby establishes his second minority government. Parliament passes the India Act
- 1858: Eraser fitted to end of pencil
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| 15 | 1859 | - 1859: Darwin in 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', asserted all life had a common ancestor and that the origin of species was natural selection
- 1859: End of Derby's second minority government. Palmerston brings his second Liberal government to power.
- 1859: Smiles' 'Self-Help' published
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| 16 | 1860 | - 1860: Joseph Wilson Swan invented the light bulb, an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament.
- 1860: Gladstone's budget and the Anglo-French Cobden Treaty codifies and extends the principles of free trade
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| 17 | 1861 | - 1861: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis published his deduction that childbirth fever was transmitted on the hands of doctors during their examinations
- 1861: Death of Prince Albert, Prince Consort
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| 18 | 1862 | - 1862: Pasteur published the 'germ theory:': Infection is caused by self-replicating microorganisms, and that attenuated viral cultures granted immunity. These beneficent antigens he named 'vaccines' in honor of Jenner and his vaccinia virus
- 1862: Parliament passes the Limited Liability Act in order to provide vital stimulus to accumulation of capital in shares
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| 19 | 1863 | - 1863: Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Salvation Army is founded
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| 20 | 1865 | - 1865: Lister, using carbolic acid as antiseptic and sterilizing his instrument, proved the efficacy of antiseptic surgery
- 1865: Death of Palmerston. Russell establishes his second Liberal government
- 1865: Lewis Carroll publishes 'Alice's Adventure in Wonderland'
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| 21 | 1866 | - 1866: Gregor Mendel, in "Versuche ?ber Pflantenhybriden," interpreted heredity in terms of a pairing of dominant and/or recessive unit characters; that is, ones that could in practice be treated as indivisible and independent particles
- 1866: Alfred Nobel patented dynamite
- 1866: Russell and Gladstone fail to have their moderate Reform Bill passed in parliament. Derby takes power in his third minority Conservative government
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| 22 | 1867 | - 1867: Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, maintained the value, or exchange relation, of commodities is characterized by its alienation from its use-value, and thus its value as the product of human labor, which the capitalist treats as a variable and against which he accounts his surplus.
- 1867: Derby and Disraeli's Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise to two million. Canada becomes the first independent dominion in the British Empire under the Dominion of Canada Act
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| 23 | 1868 | - 1868: Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time
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| 24 | 1869 | - 1869: George M. Beard distinguished 'neurasthenia,' a nervous disease of men, from hysteria, a women's disease, as, in an earlier time, men's 'hypochondriasis' had been distinguished from women's ' vapeurs.' Subforms of neurasthenia came to be called phobias.
- 1869: The Irish Church is disestablished. The Suez Canal is opened
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| 25 | 1870 | - 1870: Primary education becomes compulsory in Britain through the Forster-Ripon English Elementary Education Act. Parliament also passes the Women's Property Act, extending the rights of married women, and the Irish Land Act
- 1870: First British postcard devised by Anthony Trollope
- 1870: Wheeler introduces toilet paper roll in US
- 1870: Inauguration of London to Calcutta telegraph line, first electronic link between Europe and India
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| 26 | 1871 | - 1871: Trade Unions are legalized
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| 27 | 1872 | - 1872: Secret voting is introduced for elections. Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act
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| 28 | 1873 | - 1873: Gladstone's government resigns after the defeat of their Irish Universities Bill. Disraeli declines to take up office instead
- 1873: Parmalee invents automatic fire sprinklers
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| 29 | 1874 | - 1874: Disraeli becomes Conservative Prime Minister for the second time
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| 30 | 1875 | - 1875: Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal. Agricultural depression increases
- 1875: Parliament passes R.A. Cross's Conservative social reforms
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| 31 | 1876 | - 1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
- 1876: Nikolas August Otto designed the first four-stroke piston engine
- 1876: Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India. The massacre of Christians in Turkish Bulgaria leads to anti-Turkish campaigns in Britain, led by Gladstone
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| 32 | 1877 | - 1877: Confederation of British and Boer states established in South Africa
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| 33 | 1878 | - 1878: The Congress of Berlin is held. Disraeli announces 'peace with honour'
- 1878: Edweard Muybridge photographs horse in motion
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| 34 | 1879 | - 1879: A trade depression emerges in Britain. The Zulu War is fought in South Africa. The British are defeated at Isandhlwana, but are victorious at Ulundi
- 1879: Gladstone's Midlothian campaign denounces imperialism in South Africa and Afghanistan
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| 35 | 1880 | - 1880: Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government
- 1880: The first Anglo-Boer War begins
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| 36 | 1881 | - 1881: Savoy Theatre introduces electric lighting
- 1881: Parliament passes the Irish Land and Coercion Acts
- 1881: Death of Billy the Kid
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| 37 | 1882 | - 1882: Britain occupies Egypt. A triple alliance is established between Germany, Austria and Italy
- 1882: Standard Oil controls 95% of the U.S. oil refining capacity
- 1882: Stillwell invents brown paper bag
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| 38 | 1884 | - 1884: Freud published a paper in which he found cocaine, an alkaloid in coca, effective against fatigue and neurasthenia.
- 1884: Hilaire de Chardonnet invented the first artificial textile, which was made from cellulose. It was later named rayon
- 1884: Parliament passes the third Reform Act which further extends the franchise
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| 39 | 1885 | - 1885: Death of General Gordon at Khartoum. Burma is annexed. Salisbury succeeds Gladstone with his first minority Conservative government. Parliament passes the Redistribution Act
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| 40 | 1886 | - 1886: Gladstone's third Liberal government fails to pass its first Irish Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister. Split in the Liberal Party. Salisbury establishes his second Conservative-Liberal-Unionist government. The Royal Niger Company is chartered. Gold is discovered in the Transvaal
- 1886: Statue of Liberty erected in New York Harbour
- 1886: Coca-Cola syrup invented
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1845 - 1886 (40 years)