Notable years in history

Undoubtedly not a complete list

#	Notable Event	Year	Date
1	Roman Emperor Constantine converts to Christianity	312
2	St Patrick begins mission to Ireland	432
3	Prophet Muhammad born at Mecca	570
4	William The Conqueror Defeats Harold At the Battle of Hastings	1066	14 October
5	Battle of Stamford Bridge	1066	25 September
6	Completion of Domesday Book	1086
7	Portugal becomes independent from Spain	1139
8	Murder of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral	1170	29 December
9	Genghis Khan begins his conquest of Asia	1206
10	The Sealing of Magna Carta	1215
11	First Lord Mayor’s Show in London	1215
12	Battle of Bannockburn	1314	23 – 24 June
13	Black Death (The Plague) reaches England	1349
14	English becomes the official language in the English Parliament and Law Courts	1362
15	Battle of Agincourt	1415	25 October
16	Death of Joan of Arc	1431	30 May
17	Eton College founded by Henry VI (to provide free education to poor boys)	1440
18	First recorded mention of golf in Scotland	1447
19	Wars of The Roses Begins	1455	22 May
20	The first book printed with moveable type	1455
21	Caxton sets up a printing press in Westminster	1476
22	Edward IV bans cricket (it interferred with archery practice)	1477
23	Battle of Bosworth Field	1485	22 August
24	Christopher Columbus Arrives in the West Indies	1492
25	Sea-route to India discovered by Vasco-de-Gama	1498
26	Dissolution of monasteries starts in England	1536
27	Mary Rose flagship of Henry VIII sinks in the Solent (in 1982 it was raised from the depths)	1545	19 July
28	The wedding ring finger changed from right to left hand (men did not wear wedding rings at that time)	1549
29	Michel Nostradamus publishes his prophecies	1555
30	William Shakespeare Is Born	1564	April
31	English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism	1581
32	Introduction of potatoes to England	1587
33	Spanish Armada defeated	1588	8 August
34	British East India Company established in India	1600
35	Guy Fawkes and The Gunpowder Plot Are Discovered	1605	5 November
36	The first permanent English colony in the Americas	1607	14 May
37	The first use of a telescope by Galileo	1608
38	Sir Walter Raleigh beheaded	1618	29 October
39	Battle of Naseby	1645	14 June
40	Execution of Charles I	1649	January
41	Christmas was banned by Oliver Cromwell	1649
42	Monarchy restored in England	1660
43	Tea was introduced to Britain	1662
44	The Great Plague of England	1665
45	Great Fire of London	1666	2–5 September
46	Glorious Revolution in England (aka The Bloodless Revolution)	1668
47	Thomas Blood caught stealing the Crown Jewels	1671	May
48	Release of all prisoners held for their religious beliefs	1686
49	Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica	1687
50	Freedom of Press in England (licensing of the press in Britain was abolished)	1695
51	Battle of Blenheim	1704	13 August
52	British take Gibraltar	1704	4 August
53	Union of England and Scotland	1706	22 July
54	Dick Turpin hanged at York	1739	22 March
55	Battle of Culloden	1746	16 April
56	British Museum opens to the public in London (the British Museum is older than the USA)	1759
57	Declaration of American Independence	1776	4 July
58	The first golf club was founded at St Andrew’s	1784
59	George Washington was elected the first President of America	1789
60	French Revolution begins	1789	14 July
61	First British Factory Act	1802
62	Napoleon Bonaparte sold French possessions in America to the United States	1803
63	Battle of Trafalgar and Nelson’s death	1805	21 October
64	Prime Minister Spencer Perceval assassinated	1812	11 May
65	The British set fire to the White House	1814	24 August
66	The Battle of Waterloo	1815	18 June
67	Death of Napoleon Bonaparte	1821	5 May
68	RSPCA established	1824
69	Reforms Bill passed in England	1832
70	Britain invades the Falkland Islands	1833
71	Christmas becomes a national holiday	1835
72	Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne of England	1837	20 June
73	British massacred in Khyber Pass	1842
74	Start of the California gold rush	1848
75	Vaccination against smallpox made compulsory in Britain	1853
76	Battle of Balaklava in Crimea (charge of the Light Brigade)	1854	25 October
77	London postal districts introduced	1857
78	Publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species	1859	24 November
79	American Civil War begins	1861	12 April
80	Assassination of Abraham Lincoln	1865	15 April
81	Slavery abolished in the USA	1865	19 June
82	The last convicts landed in Australia (Western Australia)	1868
83	Opening of the Suez Canal for traffic	1869
84	Opening of Royal Albert Hall	1871	29 March
85	First FA Cup final (Wanderers 1 Royal Engineers 0)	1872	16 March
86	Factory Act introduces 56-hour week	1874
87	Battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer’s last stand)	1876	25–26 June
88	Blackpool illuminations switched on for the first time	1879	18 September
89	Gunfight at OK Corral	1881	26 October
90	John Harvey Kellogg patents cornflakes	1884
91	Benz develops first petrol-driven car	1885
92	Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee	1887	20 June
93	Roentgen discovered X-Rays	1895
94	The National Trust founded in England	1895
95	Daily Mail first published	1896	4 May
96	Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers	1899	15 November
97	Russo-Japanese War	1904	8 February – 5 September 1905
98	France and the UK signed the Entente Cordiale	1904	8 April
99	Discovery of the theory of Relativity by Einstein	1905
100	Coal Mines Regulation Act in Britain limits men to an eight-hour day	1908
101	Old age pension introduced in the UK	1909	1 January
102	Chinese Revolution	1911
103	DelhireplacedCalcutta as the capital of India	1911
104	The Republic of China established	1912
105	Britain nationalises the telephone system	1912
106	Beginning of World War I	1914	28 July
107	First policewoman goes on duty in Britain	1914
108	Compulsory military service was introduced in Britain	1916
109	Russian Revolution	1917	8 March
110	USA declares war on Germany	1917	6 April
111	End of World War I	1918	11 November
112	Start of worldwide ‘flu pandemic	1918
113	The Treaty of Versailles signed	1919	28 June
114	Britain adopts a 48-hour working week	1919
115	Formation of the League of Nations	1920
116	Prohibition starts in the USA	1920	17 January
117	BBC founded	1922	18 October 1922
118	Turkey declared Republic	1923	29 October
119	Chimes of Big Ben broadcast on the radio for the first time	1923	31 December
120	Death of Lenin	1924	21 January
121	Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf	1925
122	Lindbergh makes record first solo flight across the Atlantic	1927
123	Women over 21 get the vote in Britain	1928	May
124	US stock market crashes	1929	29 October
125	3M begins marketing Scotch Tape	1930
126	Sydney Harbour Bridge opened	1932	19 March
127	Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany	1933	30 January
128	First known photos of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ taken	1933
129	London adopts a ‘Green Belt’ scheme	1935
130	Beginning of the Spanish Civil War	1936	17 July – 1 April 1939
131	Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson	1937	3 June
132	The principle of paid holidays was established in Britain	1938
133	World War II begins	1939	1 September
134	Pearl Harbour was invaded by Japan	1941	7 December
135	‘Dam Buster’ raids on Ruhr dams by RAF	1943	16–17 May
136	PAYE income tax begins	1944
137	V-E Day marks the end of the Second World War	1945	‎8 May
138	Death of President Roosevelt	1945	12 April
139	Civil War in China	1946
140	First civil flight from Heathrow Airport	1946	January
141	Burma and Ceylon gained independence	1948	4 February
142	The Communists capture power in China	1949
143	Zebra crossings introduced into law in Britain	1951
144	General Eisenhower elected as the American President	1952	November
145	Piltdown Man skull declared a hoax by the Natural History Museum	1953
146	Commercial TV started in Britain	1955	22 September
147	Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union	1957	4 October
148	Blue Peter first broadcast on TV	1958	16 October
149	Invention of the integrated circuit (microchip)(US)	1958
150	Hawaii becomes the 50th State of the USA	1959	21 August
151	The first commercially available oral contraceptive pill	1960
152	MoT tests on motor vehicles introduced	1960
153	Farthing ceases to be legal tender in the UK	1960	31 December
154	Yuri Gagarin Becomes the First Man in Space	1961	12 April
155	Nelson Mandela jailed	1962
156	Valentina Tereshkova first woman in space	1963	16 June
157	TV ban on cigarette advertising in Britain	1965
158	Australia converts from £ to $	1966
159	UK first win the Eurovision Song Contest	1967
160	Issue of 5p and 10p decimal coins in Britain	1968
161	The voting age lowered from 21 to 18	1969
162	The 50 pence pieces introduced (10/-)	1969
163	First Glastonbury Festival held	1970	19 September
164	Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka	1972
165	The last human on the moon	1972
166	Skylab launched	1973	14 May
167	India becomes the sixth nation to explode a nuclear device	1974
168	End of the Vietnam War	1975	30 April
169	‘Cod War’ between Britain and Iceland	1976
170	Concorde’s first commercial flight	1976	21 January
171	Death of Elvis Presley	1977	16 August
172	First May Day holiday in Britain	1978	1 May
173	Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran	1979	1 February
174	Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer	1981	29 July
175	Laker Airways collapses	1982	5 February
176	Seat belt law comes into force	1983
177	Mohamed Al Fayed buys Harrods	1985	12 March
178	Chernobyl nuclear accident	1986	26 April
179	Challenger space Shuttle disaster	1986	28 January
180	Bank of England £1 notes cease to be legal tender	1988	11 March
181	Dog licences abolished in England	1988
182	Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses	1989	May
183	The collapse of Communist regimes in Europe	1989/90
184	Nelson Mandela released	1990	11 February
185	Russian submarine Kursk sunk in an accident	2000	12 August