time line

1837
Queen Victoria comes to the throne.

1839
First Opium War in China.

1840
Marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert; Penny post starts; Annexation of New Zealand.

1842
Opening of the Great Western railway.

1840s
Railway mania hits Britain.

1842
Attempted assassination of Queen Victoria.


1845
Potato famine hits Ireland.

1846
Corn Laws are abolished.


1848
Revolutions break out across Europe.

1850
The first public libraries open.

1851
Great exhibition opens in Crystal Palace.

1852
Britain annexes Burma.


1854-1856
The Crimean War.


1855
Livingstone discovers and names the Victoria Falls on Africa's Zambezi River.


1856
Victoria Cross is created to reward bravery in battle.


1857
The Indian Mutiny happens; the Second Opium War in China occurs.


1858
The London Omnibus company is founded.


1859
Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.


1860
The navy launches its iron warships.


1861
Prince Albert dies from typhoid; Civil War begins in America.


1867
Diamonds are discovered in South Africa; The second Reform Act is passed.


1869
The Suez Canal is opened in Egypt.


1871
Henry Morton Stanley finds Livingstone in Africa.


1873
Asante war occurs on the Gold Coast.


1876
Christians are massacred in Turkish Bulgaria; Disraeli becomes Earl of Beaconsfield; First telephone call made by Alexander Graham Bell.


1877
Queen Victoria made Empress of India; The first Wimbledon tennis championships are played.


1879
The Zulu War occurs in Africa, with British army defeated and humiliated at Isandhlwana); Britain invades Afghanistan.


1880
The first Boer War.


1881
Boers defeat British in Boer War; Wales bans drinking on Sunday; Parnell is sent to prison in Ireland.


1884-1885
Berlin Conference ends the scramble for Africa; Third Reform Act passed by Parliament.


1885
The Fall of Khartoum; The motor car is invented; The Indian National Congress is started in Bombay to help Indians play a larger role in the government of their country, which is under British rule.


1886
Gold is discovered in South Africa's Transvaal.


1888
Match girls' strike; Jack the Ripper terrorizes London.


1890
Cecil Rhodes becomes prime minister of Cape Colony.


1892
Kier Hardie becomes first Labor Party MP.


1894
Rudyard Kipling writes The Jungle Book.


1896
The British invade Sudan; Kaiser sends a telegram to Rhodes regarding the Jameson Raid; Invention of X-ray photographs.


1897
Queen Victoria's Jubliee.


1898
The Boxer Rebellion happens in China.

1899
The Boer War.

1900
Sigmund Freud publishes the Interpretation of Dreams.


1901
Queen Victoria dies.