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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1874 | - 1874: Factory Act introduces 56-hour week
- 5 Apr 1874: Birkenhead Park opened, said to be the first civic public park in the world – features of it later copied in Central Park, New York
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| 2 | 1875 | - 1875: London's main sewage system completed
- 1 Jan 1875: Midland Railway abolishes Second Class passenger facilities, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies followed during the rest of the year. (Third Class was renamed Second Class in 1956)
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| 3 | 1876 | - 14 Feb 1876: Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray each file a patent for the telephone – Bell awarded the rights
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| 4 | 1877 | - 1877: Edison invents microphone and phonograph
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| 5 | 1878 | - 1878: Edison & Swan invent electric lamp
- 1878: Red Flag Act in Britain limits mechanical road vehicles to 4mph
- 1878: CID established at New Scotland Yard
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| 6 | 1879 | - 18 Sep 1879: Blackpool illuminations switched on for first time
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| 7 | 1880 | - 1880: Education Act: schooling compulsory for 5-10 year olds
- 1880: Mosquito found to be the carrier of malaria
- 2 Aug 1880: Greenwich Mean Time adopted throughout UK
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| 8 | 1881 | - 1881: Postal Orders introduced
- 1881: Flogging abolished in Army and Royal Navy
- Sep 1881: Godalming in Surrey became the first town in England to have a public electricity
supply installed (but in 1884 it reverted to gas lighting until 1904)
- 26 Oct 1881: Gunfight at OK Corral
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| 9 | 1882 | - 1882: Fourth Eddystone Lighthouse completed
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| 10 | 1883 | - 1883: Statue of Liberty presented to USA by France
- 24 May 1883: Brooklyn Bridge, New York opens (crosses East River)
- 1 Aug 1883: Parcel post starts in Britain
- 27 Aug 1883: Eruption of Krakatoa near Java – 30,000 killed by tidal wave
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| 11 | 1884 | - 31 May 1884: John Harvey Kellogg patents corn flakes
- 13 Oct 1884: Greenwich made prime meridian of the world
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| 12 | 1885 | - 1885: Carl Benz builds the 'Motorwagen', a single-cylinder motor car
- 1885: Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first motorcycle
- 1885: Eastman makes first coated photographic paper
- 1885: Canadian Pacific Railway completed
- Mar 1885: First UK cremation in modern times took place at Woking
- 5 Sep 1885: The first train runs through the Severn Tunnel
- 29 Sep 1885: First electric tramcar used at Blackpool
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| 13 | 1886 | - 20 Jan 1886: Mersey railway (under Mersey) opened by Prince of Wales
- May 1886: Pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage later named
"Coca-Cola"
- 29 May 1886: Putney Bridge opens in London
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| 14 | 1887 | - 1887: Daimler produces a four-wheeled motor car
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| 15 | 1888 | - 1888: Convention of Constantinople guarantees free maritime passage through Suez
Canal in war and peace
- 1888: Jack the Ripper active in east London during the latter half of the year
- 1888: County Councils set up in Britain
- 1888: Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre
- 1888: First box camera – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent
for his camera which uses roll film
- 20 Mar 1888: Football League formed
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| 16 | 1889 | - 1889: Celluloid film produced
- 1889: Dock Strike – docker's won their "Docker's Tanner", 6 old pennies
- 31 Mar 1889: Eiffel Tower completed (to mark centenary of French Revolution)
- 14 May 1889: Children's charity NSPCC launched in London
- 3 Jun 1889: Canadian Pacific Railway completed from coast to coast
- 28 Sep 1889: Length of a metre defined
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| 17 | 1890 | - 4 Mar 1890: Forth railway bridge opens – took six years to build
- 4 Nov 1890: City & South London Railway opens – London's first deep-level tube railway
and first major railway in the world to use electric traction
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| 18 | 1891 | - 1891: Primary education made free and compulsory
- 18 Mar 1891: First telephone link between London & Paris
- 4 May 1891: Fictional date when Sherlock Holmes throws Moriarty over Reichenbach Falls, then disappears for 3 years! (published in 1893)
- 24 Aug 1891: Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera
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| 19 | 1892 | - 1892: Electric oven invented
- 1892: Shop Hours Act – limit 74 hours per week for under-18's
- 6 Oct 1892: Alfred Lord Tennyson dies, aged 83, at his house Aldworth, near Haslemere
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| 20 | 1893 | - 1893: Henry Ford's first car
- 1893: Zip fastener invented
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| 21 | 1894 | - 1894: Picture postcard introduced in Britain
- 1 Jan 1894: Manchester Ship Canal opens
- 1 Mar 1894: Blackpool Tower opens
- 30 Jun 1894: Tower Bridge first opens
- 2 Aug 1894: Death duties first introduced in Britain
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| 22 | 1895 | - 1895: Sir Henry Wood starts Promenade Concerts in London
- 12 Jan 1895: The National Trust founded in England
- 24 May 1895: Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted
- 28 May 1895: Oscar Wilde sent to prison
- 12 Jul 1895: First recorded motor journey of any length (56 miles) in Britain
- 17 Oct 1895: First people in Britain to be charged with motor offences – John Henry Knight and James Pullinger of Farnham, Surrey
- Nov 1895: X-rays discovered
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| 23 | 1896 | - 5 Apr 1896: First modern Olympic Games held in Athens
- 2 Jun 1896: Guglielmo Marconi receives a British patent (later disputed) for the radio
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| 24 | 1897 | - 1897: Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector
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| 25 | 1898 | - 1898: First photograph using artificial light
- 1898: Zeppelin builds airship
- 1898: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company founded
- 17 Mar 1898: USS Holland launched, the first practical submarine
- 27 Jun 1898: The first solo circumnavigation of the globe completed at Rhode island by
Joshua Slocum in Spray (started from Boston, Mass on Apr 24, 1895)
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| 26 | 1899 | - 6 Mar 1899: Aspirin first marketed by Bayer
- 11 Oct 1899: Start of Second Boer War
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| 27 | 1900 | - 1900: School leaving age in Britain raised to 14 years
- 1900: Central Line opens in London: underground is electrified
- 1900: Escalator shown at Paris exhibition
- 9 Feb 1900: Davis Cup tennis competition established
- 27 Feb 1900: Labour Party formed
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| 28 | 1901 | - 1901: Commonwealth of Australia founded
- 1901: Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner
- 22 Jan 1901: Queen Victoria dies – Edward VII king
- 2 Feb 1901: Queen Victoria's funeral – interred beside Prince Albert in the Frogmore
Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park
- Jun 1901: Denunciation of use of concentration camps by British in Boer War
- 2 Oct 1901: Britain's first submarine launched
- 12 Dec 1901: First successful radio transmission across the Atlantic, by Marconi – Morse
code from Cornwall to Newfoundland
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| 29 | 1902 | - 1902: Balfour's Education Act provides for secondary education
- 1902: Cremation Act – cremation can only take place at officially recognised establishments,
and with two death certificates issued
- 1902: Marie Curie discovers radioactivity
- 24 May 1902: Empire Day (later Commonwealth Day) first celebrated
- 31 May 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging ends Second Boer War
- 9 Aug 1902: Coronation of Edward VII
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| 30 | 1903 | - 1903: Workers' Education Association (WEA) formed in Britain
- 1903: Women's Social and Political Union formed in Britain by Emmeline Pankhurst
- 1903: Henry Ford sets up his motor company
- 14 Dec 1903: First flight of Wilbur & Orville Wright
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| 31 | 1904 | - 1904: Leeds University established
- 8 Apr 1904: France and UK sign the Entente Cordiale
- 4 May 1904: America takes over construction of the Panama Canal from the French
(completed 1914)
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| 32 | 1905 | - 1905: The title 'Prime Minister' noted in a royal warrant for the first time – placed the Prime
Minister in order of precedence in Britain immediately after the Archbishop of York
- 1905: Aliens Act in Britain: Home Office controls immigration
- 1905: Germany lays down the first Dreadnought battleship
- 11 Apr 1905: Einstein publishes Special Theory of Relativity
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| 33 | 1906 | - 1906: Introduction of free school meals for poor children
- 10 Feb 1906: Launching of HMS Dreadnought, first turbine-driven battleship
- 15 Mar 1906: Rolls-Royce Ltd registered
- 26 May 1906: Vauxhall Bridge opened in London
- 20 Sep 1906: Launching of Cunard's RMS Mauretania on the Tyne
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| 34 | 1907 | - 1907: New Zealand becomes a Dominion
- 1907: Imperial College, London, is established
- 1907: First airship flies over London
- 1907: Lumiere develops a process for colour photography
- Jul 1907: Leo Hendrik Baekeland patents Bakelite, the first plastic invented that held its
shape after being heated
- 1 Aug 1907: Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island
- 9 Nov 1907: The Cullinan Diamond presented to Edward VII on his birthday
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| 35 | 1908 | - 1908: Coal Mines Regulation Act in Britain limits men to an eight hour day
- 1908: Separate courts for juveniles established in Britain
- 1908: Lord Baden-Powell starts the Boy Scout movement
- 1 Jul 1908: SOS became effective as an international signal of distress
- 12 Aug 1908: First 'Model T' Ford made
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| 36 | 1909 | - 1909: Beveridge Report prompts creation of labour Exchanges
- 1909: Peary reaches the north pole
- 1909: First commercial manufacture of Bakelite – start of the plastic age
- 1 Jan 1909: Old Age Pensions Act came into force
- 16 Jan 1909: Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole
- 15 Mar 1909: Selfridges department store opens in London
- 25 Jul 1909: Bleriot flies across the Channel (36 minutes, Calais to Dover)
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| 37 | 1910 | - 1910: Railway strike and coal strikes in Britain
- 1910: Constitutional crisis in Britain
- 1910: Dr Crippen caught by radio telegraphy; hanged 23 Nov at Pentonville
- 1910: Madame Curie isolates radium
- 1910: Halley's comet reappears
- 1910: Tango becomes popular in North America and Europe
- 6 May 1910: Edward VII dies – George V becomes King
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| 38 | 1911 | - 1911: Parliament Act in Britain reduces the power of the House of Lords
- 1911: British MPs receive a salary
- 1911: First British Official Secrets Act
- 1911: Rutherford: theory of atomic structures
- 1911: Strikes by seamen, dock and transport workers (1911-1912)
- 2 Apr 1911: Census: Population - England and Wales: 36 Million; Scotland: 4.6 Million; N Ireland: 1.25 Million
- 22 Jun 1911: Coronation of George V
- 14 Dec 1911: National Insurance introduced in Britain
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| 39 | 1912 | - 1912: Irish Home Rule crisis grows in Britain
- 1912: Britain nationalises the telephone system
- 1912: Discovery of the 'Piltdown Man' – hoax, exposed in 1953
- 18 Jan 1912: Captain Scott's last expedition – he and his team reach the south pole on Jan
18th; all die on the way back, their bodies found in November
- 14 Apr 1912: The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks on maiden voyage – loss of 1,513 lives
- 13 May 1912: Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) founded in Britain
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1873 - 1912 (39 years)