The ‘Long Nineteenth Century’ 1789 –1914

 

1789

may

Meeting of the Estates General.

 

july

Fall of the Bastille.

 

aug.

Promulgation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

 

oct.

The royal family and the National Assembly brought to Paris.

 

nov.

Expropriation of the Church begins.

 

 

Leblanc invents process for deriving soda from sea salt.

1790

 

Death of Joseph II, succeeded by his brother Leopold II.

 

july

Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

 

 

Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

 

 

Mozart, Cosí fan tutte.

1791

may

New Polish constitution.

 

june

Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes.

 

 

Beginning of Saint-Domingue slave revolt.

 

 

Mozart, The Magic Flute.

 

 

Tom Paine, Rights of Man.

 

 

Revolution government abolishes all guilds in France.

 

 

Brandenburg Gate completed.

1792

 

Death of Leopold II, accession of Francis II.

 

apr.

Wars of the French Revolution begin.

 

aug.

France becomes a republic.

 

sept.

Massacres in Paris.

 

sept.

Battle of Valmy.

1793

jan.

Execution of Louis XVI.

 

mar.

Counter-revolutionary revolt in the Vendée begins.

 

apr.

Committee of Public Safety established.

 

aug.

Levée en masse.

 

sept

Terror begins.

 

 

Second partition of Poland.

 

 

Last witch executed in Poland.

 

 

Central Museum of the Arts opened in the Louvre.

 

 

Revolutionary government in France abolishes all seigneurial claims, restrictions, and obligations.

1794

july

Battle of Fleurus.

 

july

Fall of Robespierre.

 

 

Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht (General Legal Code) promulgated.

1795

 

British occupation of Dutch colonies.

 

 

Third partition leads to the extinction of the Polish state.

 

 

Treaties of Basle end wars between France and Prussia and France and Spain.

 

 

Belgium annexed to France.

 

 

Crompton’s spinning mule is adapted for power.

1796

 

Bonaparte conquers northern Italy.

 

 

Catherine the Great of Russia dies; with the accession of her son, Paul I, Russia suspends its role in First Coalition.

 

 

Trevithick begins to apply steam power to traction.

 

 

Edward Jenner introduces vaccination against smallpox.

1797

 

Treaty of Campo Formio ends war between France and Austria.

1798

 

General Bonaparte leads an expedition to conquer Egypt.

 

 

Battle of the Nile, a British fleet commanded by Nelson destroys Napoleon’s fleet.

 

 

Irish rebellion.

 

 

War of the Second Coalition.

 

 

Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads.

 

 

Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads.

 

 

Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population.

 

 

Haydn, Creation.

 

 

Aloys Senefelder invents lithography.

1798–9

 

Tennant and Macintosh invent bleaching powder for cloth.

1799

mar.

War between France and Austria resumes; Russia enters the war on the side of Austria; the French are expelled from Italy.

 

oct.

Bonaparte returns from Egypt.

 

nov.

Bonaparte seizes power in France.

 

 

Collapse of Dutch East India Company.

 

 

First water-driven spinning mule is set up in Saxony.

1800

 

Battle of Marengo, Bonaparte defeats the Austrians.

 

 

Battle of Hohenlinden, Moreau defeats the Austrians.

 

 

Friedrich von Hardenberg alias Novalis, Hymns to the Night.

 

 

Alessandro Volta demonstrates first electric battery.

1801

 

Treaty of Lunéville ends war between France and Austria.

 

 

Assassination of Paul I, accession of Alexander I.

 

 

Bonaparte’s Concordat with the Pope.

 

 

Act of Union unites Great Britain and Ireland.

1802

 

Treaty of Amiens.

 

 

Chateaubriand, The Genius of Christianity.

1803

 

War resumes between France and Britain.

 

 

France sells Louisiana to the USA.

 

 

Imperial Recess decrees sweeping territorial changes in Germany, which ensure French domination.

 

 

Widespread secularization of monasteries in Germany.

 

 

Beethoven’s Third Symphony, ‘Eroica’, composed (first performed 1805).

1804

 

Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, proclaims himself also Emperor of Austria as Francis I,

 

 

Bonaparte proclaims himself Emperor Napoleon I, is crowned by the Pope Pius VII.

 

 

Code Napoléon enacted.

1805

 

Bonaparte reorganizes Italy under direct French control.

 

aug.

The third coalition consisting of Britain, Austria, Russia, and Sweden is formed against France; war resumes on the continent.

 

oct.

Austrian army capitulates at Ulm.

 

oct.

Battle of Trafalgar.

 

dec.

Baffle of Austerlitz; Napoleon inflicts a crushing defeat on an Austro-Russian army.

 

dec.

Treaty of Pressburg; Russia withdraws from the war.

1806

mar.

Napoleon makes his brother Joseph King of Naples.

 

june

Napoleon makes his brother Louis King of the Netherlands.

 

july

Napoleon reorganizes Germany as the ‘Confederation of the Rhine’.

 

aug.

Formal end of the Holy Roman Empire when the Emperor

 

 

Francis II abdicates and becomes Francis I of Austria.

 

oct.

Prussia declares war on France.

 

oct.

Battles of Jena and Auerstedt, Prussia defeated.

1807

 

Russia rejoins war as Prussia’s ally; indecisive campaign in Poland.

 

june

Decisive French victory at Battle of Friedland.

 

july

Treaty of Tilsit ends war; France and Russia enter alliance.

 

 

Portuguese royal family flees to Brazil.

 

 

Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation.

 

 

Caspar David Friedrich, The Cross in the Mountains.

 

 

Britain abolishes the slave trade.

 

 

Humphry Davy isolates sodium and potassium from their compounds.

1808

 

Napoleon imposes his brother Joseph as King of Spain; Spanish people rise in revolt, assisted by the British army.

 

 

Rome occupied by French troops.

 

 

Goethe, Faust, Part I.

1809

apr.

War resumes between France and Austria.

 

may

Austrians defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

 

july

Napoleon defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram.

 

oct.

Treaty of Schönbrunn ends war between Austria and

 

 

France. Papal States annexed to France.

1810

 

Napoleon marries the Archduchess Marie Louise,

 

 

daughter of the Emperor Francis I.

 

 

Napoleon annexes the Netherlands to France.

 

 

Napoleon annexes the north-western coast of Germany.

 

 

Revolts against Spanish rule in Venezuela and Rio de la Plata (future Argentina).

1811

 

‘Luddite’ machine-breaking riots in Britain.

1812

 

Battle of Salamanca, defeat of French in Spain by army commanded by the Duke of Wellington.

 

 

Goya, The Disasters of War.

 

june

Napoleon with his German and Italian satellites invades Russia.

 

sept.

Napoleon fights the indecisive Battle of Borodino and enters Moscow a week later.

 

oct.

Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow begins.

 

dec.

Remnants of Napoleon’s army leaves Russia.

 

 

Henry Bell’s The Comet, the world’s first commercial steamship, begins operations on the Clyde.

1813

feb.

Treaty of Kalisch between Prussia and Russia.

 

june

Wellington defeats the French at Vittoria, prompting King Joseph to flee to France.

 

aug.

Austria declares war on France.

 

oct.

Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Leipzig and loses control of Germany.

 

dec.

Prussian army under Blücher begins the invasion of France.

 

 

Colombia declares independence from Spain.

 

 

Rossini, Tancredi.

1814

mar.

Allies abandon attempt to negotiate with Napoleon and conclude Treaty of Chaumont for wartime and post-war alliance.

 

mar.

Wellington captures Bordeaux.

 

apr.

Napoleon abdicates, is exiled to the island of Elba; Louis XVIII returned to French throne.

 

sept.

General negotiations for a comprehensive peace settlement begin at Vienna.

 

 

Uruguay declares independence from Spain.

1815

mar.

Napoleon returns from Elba

 

june (18)

Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to St Helena.

 

 

Congress of Vienna completes restructuring of Europe.

 

sept.

Russia, Austria, and Prussia form the ‘Holy Alliance’.

 

nov.

Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia form a Quadruple Alliance to maintain the Vienna settlement.

 

nov.

Second treaty of Paris reduces France to frontiers of 1790.

 

 

Humphry Davy invents miner’s safety lamp.

1816

 

Chile declares independence from Spain.

1817

 

Wartburg Festival, liberal-nationalist demonstration by German students.

1818

 

Hegel becomes Professor of Philosophy at the University of Berlin.

 

Prado Museum founded at Madrid.

1819

 

Carlsbad decrees suppressing political activity in Germany.

 

 

First steam-powered ship (the Savannah) crosses the Atlantic.

 

 

Peterloo Massacre at Manchester.

 

 

Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea.

 

 

Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa.

 

 

Singapore founded by British East India Company.

1820

 

Revolutions in Spain and Portugal.

 

 

Spain cedes Florida to the United States.

1820–21

 

Revolts in Naples and Piedmont and their repression.

 

 

Conferences at Troppau and Laibach; European Concert splits over right of intervention.

1821

 

Peru and Panama declare independence from Spain.

 

 

Michael Faraday discovers electro-magnetic rotation.

 

 

Death of Napoleon on St Helena.

 

 

Carl Maria von Weber, Der Freischütz

 

 

Klenze, Valhalla (completed 1842).

 

 

Constable, Haywain.

 

 

Hegel, Philosophy of Right.

1822

 

Greek declaration of independence.

 

 

Brazil declares independence from Portugal.

 

 

Congress of Verona.

 

 

Pushkin, Eugene Onegin.

1823

 

French invasion of Spain to restore Bourbon authority.

 

 

New South Wales becomes a Crown colony.

 

 

Daniel O’Connell forms Catholic Association of Ireland.

 

 

Beethoven, Missa Solemnis.

 

 

Schinkel, Old Museum, Berlin (completed 1830).

 

 

Robert Smirke, The British Museum (completed 1847).

1824

 

Death of Byron at Missolonghi.

 

 

Delacroix, Massacre of Chios.

 

 

Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 (‘Choral’).

1825

 

Decembrist revolt in Russia following death of Alexander I.

 

 

Financial crash.

 

 

Coronation of Charles X of France at Rheims.

 

 

Opening of Stockton–Darlington railway, the first line to carry passengers.

 

 

Financial crisis in London.

 

 

Portugal recognizes the independence of Brazil.

 

 

Bolivia declares independence from Spain.

 

 

Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi.

1827

 

Anglo–Russian–French alliance and intervention in Greek.

 

 

War leads to destruction of the Turkish–Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino.

 

 

Joseph Niepce produces photographs on asphalt-coated plate.

 

 

Death of Beethoven.

 

 

Schubert, Die Winterreise.

1828

 

Russo-Turkish War, Russian victory, French occupation of southern Greece.

1829

 

Treaty of Adrianople ends Russo-Turkish War, leads to independent kingdom of Greece (1832).

 

 

Catholic emancipation in Ireland and Britain.

 

 

George and Robert Stephenson’s Rocket wins Liverpool–Manchester railway competition.

1830

june

French invade Algiers.

 

july

Revolution in Paris; Charles X flees; Louis Philippe becomes king.

 

aug.

Revolution in Belgium.

 

sept.

Revolts in Hesse, Brunswick, and Saxony

 

nov.-1831

revolt in Poland.

 

sept.

Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People.

 

 

Victor Hugo, Hernani.

 

 

Stendhal, Scarlet and Black.

1831

 

Belgium achieves recognition of independence from the Netherlands.

 

 

Insurrection in Lyons.

 

 

Darwin sails to South America on HMS Beagle.

 

 

Chloroform invented.

1831–2

 

Risings in Italy, especially in the Papal States, suppressed.

1832

 

Great Reform Act in Britain.

 

 

Britain declares sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

 

 

Mazzini founds ‘Young Italy’.

 

 

Hambach festival, radical German demonstration.

 

 

Karl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber build first electric telegraph at Göttingen.

 

 

Death of Goethe; posthumous publication of his Faust, part II.

 

 

Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique.

1832–3

 

First Turco-Egyptian War; Russia intervenes to save the Ottoman Sultan.

1833

 

Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi: Russia allies with Ottoman Empire.

 

 

Holy Alliance renewed over Poland and the Ottoman Empire.

1834

 

Workers’ revolt in Lyons.

 

 

New Poor Law in England.

 

 

Prussian customs union (Zollverein) founded.

 

 

Carlist Wars begin in Spain; Britain and France ally to exclude the Holy Alliance.

 

 

Slavery is abolished in all British possessions.

1835

 

Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor.

1836

 

Chartist agitation begins in Britain.

 

 

Glinka, A Life for the Tsar.

 

 

Charles Barry wins the competition to design the new

 

 

Houses of Parliament (built 1840–70).

 

 

Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots.

1837

 

Accession of Queen Victoria.

 

 

August Borsig’s iron foundry opened in Berlin.

 

 

Electric telegraph patented.

1838

 

H. G. Dyer and J. Hemming invent ammonia process for making soda.

 

 

Louis Daguerre invents process for producing a silver image on a copper plate.

 

 

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist.

1838–48

 

Chartist Movement in England.

1839

 

Second Turco-Egyptian War; joint European intervention again saves Ottoman Sultan from defeat.

 

 

Treaty of London, fixing Belgian–Dutch borders, guaranteeing Belgian neutrality and establishing independent Luxembourg.

 

 

Britain annexes Aden.

 

 

Chartist convention and petition in England.

 

 

‘First Opium War’ between Britain and China.

 

 

James Nasmyth designs steam hammer.

 

 

Charles Goodyear vulcanizes rubber.

1840

 

Dispute between France and the other powers over the

 

 

Turkish–Egyptian settlement produces major European crisis.

 

 

Napoleon’s ashes returned from St Helena and interred at the Invalides.

 

 

Treaty of Waitangi confirms British sovereignty over New Zealand.

 

 

Justus Liebig discovers elements of artificial fertilizer.

 

 

Proudhon, What is Property?

1841

 

Straits Convention restores Concert, settles Eastern Question.

 

 

Friedrich List, National System of Political Economy.

 

 

Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity.

1842

 

Hong Kong ceded to Britain.

 

 

British conquest of Assam and Burma begins.

 

 

British driven out of Afghanistan.

 

 

Tahiti made a French protectorate.

 

 

Gogol, Dead Souls.

1843

 

Legalization of export of machinery from Britain.

 

 

France annexes Ivory Coast and Dahomey.

 

 

Carlyle, Past and Present.

1844

 

Revolt of Silesian weavers.

 

 

Engels, Condition of the Working Classes in England.

1845

 

Great Famine begins in Ireland.

1846

 

Polish revolt in Galicia; Cracow annexed by Austria.

 

Repeal of British Corn Laws.

1847

 

Civil war in Switzerland.

 

 

Discovery of gold in California.

 

 

Economic crisis in Europe.

 

 

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.

 

 

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

1847–8

 

Banquet campaign in France.

1848

jan.

Revolts in Sicily and Naples.

 

feb.22-24

Revolution in Paris; proclamation of French

 

 

Second Republic and universal male suffrage.

 

mar.

Uprisings in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Venice, Cracow, Milan, Berlin.

 

mar– apr.

Hungarian independence declared.

 

 

Abolition of serfdom in central Europe.

 

apr.

Chartist demonstration in London.

 

may

Frankfurt parliament meets.

 

june 17

Rising in Prague crushed.

 

jun 22–24

Insurrection in Paris crushed.

 

july– aug.

Northern Italy reconquered by Austrians.

 

oct. 31

Vienna bombarded into surrender.

 

dec.

Emperor Ferdinand of Austria abdicates, is succeeded by Francis Joseph.

 

dec.

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte elected President of French Republic.

 

 

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto.

 

 

J. S. Mill, The Principles of Political Economy.

1849

feb.

Roman Republic proclaimed.

 

july

French troops suppress Roman Republic.

 

aug.

Hungarian nationalists defeated.

 

aug.

Austrians recapture Venice.

 

 

Britain annexes Punjab.

 

 

Courbet, A Burial at Ornans.

1850

 

Cross-Channel telegraph cable.

 

 

Millet, The Sower.

 

 

Faraday makes public his theory of magnetism.

1851

dec.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’état.

 

 

Isaac Singer invents sewing machine.

 

 

Discovery of gold in Australia.

 

 

The Great Exhibition, London.

1852

dec.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor as Napoleon III.

 

 

Burma becomes a province of India.

 

 

Pereire brothers found Crédit Mobilier.

 

 

Charles Dickens, Bleak House.

 

 

Holman Hunt, The Light of the World.

1853–6

 

Crimean War.

1854

 

Abraham Gesner manufactures kerosene.

 

 

Heinrich Goebel invents first electric light bulb.

1856

 

Peace of Paris ends Crimean War, opens Italian Question.

 

 

Henry Bessemer develops steel converter.

 

 

William Henry Perkin makes synthetic mauve dye from naphtha.

 

 

Indian Mutiny.

 

 

Sinn Fein founded in Ireland.

1857

 

Millet, The Gleaners.

1858

july 20

Cavour and Napoleon III sign the agreement of Plombières, an alliance against Austria.

 

 

Bernadette Soubirous experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.

1859

apr. 2

Austrian army invades Piedmont.

 

may 3

France declares war on Austria.

 

june

Austrians defeated at Magenta and Solferino.

 

july 11

Truce of Villafranca.

 

 

French occupy Saigon.

 

 

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.

 

 

First practical storage battery invented.

1860

 

Sardinia-Piedmont annexes Lombardy and much of central Italy; France annexes Nice and Savoy.

 

may

Garibaldi and his ‘Thousand’ sail for Sicily.

 

aug. 22

Garibaldi invades the Italian mainland.

1861

 

Victor Emmanuel II assumes title of King of Italy.

 

 

Emancipation of the serfs in Russia.

 

 

Friedrich Siemens and Pierre and Emile Martin develop open-hearth process for making steel.

1862

 

Bismarck appointed Minister-President of Prussia.

 

 

Albert Memorial.

 

 

Garnier, Opera house, Paris (completed 1875).

1863

 

Revolt in Poland against Russian rule is suppressed.

 

 

Salon des Refusés, Paris.

 

 

Manet, Le Déjuner sur l’herbe.

1863–65

 

Legal and local government reforms in Russia.

1864

jan.

Austria and Prussia go to war against Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein.

 

oct. 30

Peace of Vienna; Denmark cedes Schleswig-Holstein to Austria and Prussia.

 

 

Tolstoy, War and Peace.

 

 

Newman, Apologia pro vita sua.

 

 

Pius IX, Syllabus errorum.

 

 

The First International, London.

 

 

Pasteurization invented.

1865

 

Transatlantic telegraph cable completed.

 

 

Pierre Lallement builds first pedalled bicycle.

1866

apr.

War between Austria and Prussia.

 

july 3

Prussia defeats Austria at the battle of Königgrätz (Sadowa).

 

 

Peace of Prague (German Confederation abolished,

 

 

Prussia greatly expanded, North German Confederation formed).

 

 

Venice ceded to Italy by Austria.

 

 

Invention of dynamite by Alfred Nobel.

 

 

Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

 

 

Financial crisis in Britain.

1867

 

Austro-Hungarian Compromise creates federal dual monarchy.

 

 

British Second Reform Act widens suffrage to male householders.

 

 

Collapse of the Crédit Mobilier.

 

 

Zola, Thérèse Raquin.

 

 

Manet, The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian.

 

 

Ibsen, Peer Gynt.

 

 

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, vol i.

1868

feb.28

Disraeli becomes Prime Minister for the first time.

 

dec. 9

Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time.

 

 

Discovery of Kimberley diamond deposits.

 

 

Dostoevsky, The Idiot.

1869

 

Opening of Suez Canal.

 

 

Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy.

1869–70

 

‘Liberal empire’ in France.

1870

july 19

France declares war on Prussia.

 

aug. 19

French army besieged at Metz.

 

sept. 2

French defeated at Sedan; Napoleon III is taken prisoner.

 

sept. 4

Republic proclaimed in France.

 

sept. 20

Italian forces enter Rome.

 

 

Zénobe Gramme makes the first dynamo with ring armature.

 

 

Adolf von Bayer synthesizes the dye indigo.

1871–8

 

German Kulturkampf.

1871

jan. 18

William I of Prussia proclaimed German Emperor.

 

jan. 28

Paris capitulates.

 

mar. 18

Rising of the Paris Commune.

 

may 10

Peace of Frankfurt; France cedes Alsace and Lorraine to Germany.

 

may 28

End of the Paris Commune.

 

 

George Eliot, Middlemarch.

1873

 

Financial crisis in Europe, beginning in Vienna; Great

 

 

Depression begins (lasting until 1896).

 

 

League of the Three Emperors (Germany, Austria, Russia).

 

 

First Impressionist Exhibition.

 

 

Constitution of French Third Republic.

1875

 

Revolt in Bosnia-Herzegovina touches off Eastern Crisis.

 

 

German Social Democratic Party founded.

 

 

Britain acquires majority shareholding in Suez Canal Company.

1876

 

Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.

 

 

Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.

 

 

First performance of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des

 

 

Nibelungen at Bayreuth.

 

 

Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

 

 

Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette.

 

 

Brahms, Symphony No. 1.

 

 

Thomas Edison makes first electric filament lamp.

 

 

Sidney Thomas and Percy Gilchrist perfect ‘basic’ process for steel production.

 

 

Protective tariffs introduced in Germany.

1877–8

 

War between Russia and Turkey.

1878

 

Congress of Berlin sorts out the Eastern Question (for the time being).

 

 

Anti-socialist law in Germany.

 

 

Theodor Fontane, Before the Storm.

 

 

Degas, Dancer on the stage.

1879

 

Germany and Austria-Hungary sign the Dual Alliance.

 

 

First electric tram exhibited, at Berlin.

1880–1

 

First Boer War brings recognition of Boer semi-independence.

1881

mar.

Assassination of Alexander II of Russia.

 

aug.

Irish Land Act.

 

 

Tunis becomes a French protectorate.

1881–6

 

Welfare reforms in Germany.

1882

 

Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form the Triple Alliance.

 

 

French occupy Hanoi.

 

 

British occupy Egypt and the Sudan.

 

 

Gottlieb Daimler builds petrol engine.

 

 

Wagner, Parsifal.

1883

 

French invade Madagascar.

 

 

Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.

 

 

Death of Wagner.

1884

 

Russia begins to lose control of Bulgaria, causing serious Eastern crisis.

 

 

Charles Parsons constructs first practical steam turbine.

 

 

Hiram Maxim devises recoil-operated machine gun.

 

 

Seurat, A Bathing-Place.

 

 

Sacconi, The Victor Emmanuel Monument, Rome (completed 1923).

 

 

Germany begins to found a colonial empire in Africa.

1885

 

Congo Free State established under Leopold II of Belgium.

 

 

Gottlieb Daimler invents internal combustion engine.

 

 

Carl Benz builds single-cylinder engine for car.

 

 

Discovery of gold in Transvaal.

 

 

Cézanne, Montagne Ste-Victoire.

 

 

Van Gogh, The Potato-Eaters.

1886

 

British annex Upper Burma.

1887

 

Germany and Russia conclude Reinsurance Treaty.

 

 

British annex Zululand.

 

 

‘Bloody Sunday’ in London.

 

 

Boulangist crisis in France.

 

 

Cyanide process for extracting gold and silver.

1888

 

North Borneo, Brunei, and Sarawak made British protectorates.

 

 

J. B. Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre

 

 

Strindberg, Miss Julie.

 

 

William II becomes German Emperor.

1889

 

Eiffel Tower opened.

1890

 

Bismarck dismissed; Germany drops Reinsurance Treaty.

 

 

Germans occupy Ruanda-Urundi.

 

 

Britain cedes Heligoland to Germany in return for

 

 

Zanzibar and Pemba.

 

 

Baring’s financial crisis in London.

 

 

J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough.

 

 

Ibsen, Hedda Gabler.

1890–8

 

Manhood suffrage introduced in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway.

1891

 

Pope Leo XIII issues the bull Rerum novarum on social issues.

1892

 

Rudolf Diesel patents his eponymous engine.

1893

jan. 13

Independent Labour Party founded in Britain.

 

 

Alliance between France and Russia.

 

 

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique).

1894

 

President Carnot of France assassinated.

 

 

Britain occupies Matabeleland.

 

 

Uganda made a British protectorate.

 

 

Italy invades Ethiopia.

 

 

Togoland made a German protectorate.

 

 

Alfred Dreyfus condemned for treason.

1894–5

 

Sino-Japanese War; Russia leads tripartite European intervention to frustrate Japanese victory.

1895

 

Louis and Auguste Lumière invent the cinematograph.

 

 

Guglielmo Marconi invents the wireless radio.

 

 

Röntgen discovers X-rays.

 

 

Lumière brothers invent motion-picture camera and projector.

 

 

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of being Earnest.

 

 

Oscar Wilde sentenced to two years’ hard labour for sodomy.

1895–8

 

Russia gains dominant political, military, and economic hold on Manchuria and North China.

1896

 

Italian army defeated by Ethiopia at the battle of Adowa.

1897

 

Anti-Semite Karl Lueger becomes mayor of Vienna.

 

 

Spanish prime minister assassinated.

 

 

Discovery of gold in the Yukon, Canada.

 

 

Germany begins to build a major battle fleet.

 

 

Germany touches off scramble for naval bases and other concessions in China.

1898

 

july ‘Fashoda incident’––confrontation between Britain and France in the Sudan.

 

 

Empress Elizabeth of Austria assassinated.

 

 

War between the United States of America and Spain.

 

 

Marie and Pierre Curie discover polonium and radium.

1899

sept. 19

Dreyfus pardoned.

 

oct.

Second Boer War begins.

 

 

Peace conference at The Hague establishes an international court of arbitration.

 

 

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.

 

 

Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.

1900

 

British Labour Party founded.

 

 

King Umberto I of Italy assassinated.

 

 

Boxer Rebellion in China.

 

 

Russia occupies Manchuria.

 

 

First flight of a Zeppelin airship.

1901

 

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

 

 

President McKinley of the USA assassinated by anarchist.

 

 

Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks.

 

 

Completion of Trans-Siberian Railway.

1902

 

Limited Anglo-Japanese Alliance signed.

 

 

Lenin, What is to be Done?

1903

 

King and Queen of Serbia assassinated.

1904

8 Apr.

Entente Cordiale between Britain and France.

 

 

Russo-Japanese War begins.

 

 

Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard.

 

 

Otto Wagner, Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna (completed 1912).

 

 

Gaudi, Casa Batlló, Barcelona.

1905

jan. 22

‘Bloody Sunday’ in St Petersburg begins revolution in Russia.

 

feb.

First Moroccan Crisis.

 

oct. 17

Nicholas II promises a constitution and an elected parliament.

 

oct.

Norway regains independence from Sweden.

 

 

Schlieffen Plan.

 

 

Group of German Expressionist artists known as ‘The Bridge’ founded.

 

 

Einstein’s theory of relativity.

1906

 

Constitution granted in Russia.

1906

 

Launch of HMS Dreadnought.

1907

 

Manhood suffrage in Austria.

 

aug.

Britain and Russia sign a convention.

 

 

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

1908

 

Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina; Bosnian

 

 

Crisis erupts.

 

 

King and Crown Prince of Portugal assassinated.

 

 

Fritz Haber introduces industrial process for synthesizing ammonia.

 

 

Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence.

 

 

Braque, Houses at L’Estaque.

 

 

Peter Behrens designs the AEG Turbine Factory, Berlin.

1909

 

Louis Blériot flies across Channel in monoplane.

 

 

Diaghilev opens his season of Ballets russes in Paris.

1910

 

E. M. Forster, Howard’s End.

1911

 

Assassination of the Russian prime minister Stolypin in Kiev.

 

 

Italy goes to war with the Ottoman Empire, seizing Libya and the Dodecanese Islands.

 

 

Second Moroccan Crisis.

 

 

Group of German arists known as ‘The Blue Rider’ founded at Munich.

 

 

Rutherford’s theory of atomic structure.

1912

 

Russia promotes the Balkan League under its protection manhood suffrage in Italy.

 

 

Social Democratic Party becomes the largest party in the German parliament.

 

 

Spanish prime minister assassinated.

 

 

Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis.

1912–3

 

First and Second Balkan wars.

1913

 

Freud, Totem and Taboo.

 

 

Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring.

 

 

Proust, Swann’s Way.

1914

june 28

Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo.

 

july 24

Russia threatens war if Austria-Hungary attacks Serbia.

 

july 25

Austria-Hungary mobilizes against Serbia.

 

july 30

Russia begins general mobilization.

 

aug. 1

Germany declares war on Russia.

 

aug. 3

Germany declares war on France and invades Belgium.

 

aug. 4

Britain declares war on Germany.

 

aug. 5

Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

 

aug. 25-30

German army commanded by Hindenburg routs invading Russian army at Tannenberg.

 

sept. 5–14

German invasion of France is halted at the battle of the Marne.

 

sept. 27

Russians invade Hungary.

 

 

James Joyce, Dubliners.

 

 

Walter Gropius, Model Factory at the Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne.