British History – History Moments

Highlights of the History of Great Britain

The Battle of Trafalgar by William Lionel Wylie
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 image from The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth

Readings in the histories of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the United Kingdom as a whole by some of the greatest writers.

Some Years listed below are approximate.

Year	Title	Author(s)
79 AD	Romans Conquer Britain	Oliver Goldsmith
449-579	Germans Conquer Britain	John R. Green\| \|Charles Knight
597 AD	Augustine’s Missionary Work in England	The Venerable Bede\| \|John R. Green
c 800	Feudalism in France and England Begins	William Stubbs
827 AD	Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy	David Hume
871-901	Alfred the Great’s Reign	Thomas Hughes\| \|John R. Green
1000	Chivalry	Léon Gautier
1017	Canute Becomes King of England	David Hume
1066	Battle of Hastings	Sir Edward Creasy
1086	Domesday Book Completed	Charles Knight
1135	Stephen Versus Matilda	Charles Knight
1170	Becket’s Murder	Father John Lingard
1189-1194	The Third Crusade	Henry Von Sybel
1202	Philip Breaks the Angevin Empire	Kate Norgate
1208	Zenith of Papal Power	Thomas F. Tout
1215	The Magna Charta Signed	David Hume
1258	How The House of Commons Began in England	John Lingard
1290	England Expels the Jews	Henry Hart Milman
1305	William Wallace, Braveheart	Sir Walter Scott
1314	End of the Knights Templars	Frederick C. Woodhouse\| \|Henry Hart Milman
1314	Battle of Bannockburn	Andrew Lang
1337	The King of England Claims Throne of France	François P. G. Guizot
1340	Battles that Began the 100 Years War	Sir John Froissart
1348	The Black Death Reaches Europe	J. F. C. Hecker\| \|Giovanni Boccaccio
1381	Rebellion of Wat Tyler	John Lingard
1382	Wycliffe Translates The Bible Into English	J. Paterson Smyth
1399	Henry IV Begins Lancaster Rule	John Lingard
1415	The Battle of Agincourt	James Gairdner
1429	Joan of Arc at Orleans	Sir Edward S. Creasy
1431	Joan of Arc’s Trial and Execution	Jules Michelet
1455-1485	Wars of the Roses	David Hume
1483	Richard III King; Princes Murdered	James Gairdner
1490’s	Perkin Warbeck’s Rebellion	Francis Bacon
1497	Cabots Discover North America Mainland	Samuel Edward Dawson

Year	Title	Author(s)
1520	The Field of the Cloth of Gold	John S. Brewer
1529	The English Reformation and Wolsey’s Fall	John Richard Green
1543	Henry VIII Makes Himself Head of the Church of England	John R. Green
1558- 1603	The Reign of Elizabeth I of England	Henry R. Cleveland
1558	England Looses Her Last French Territory	Charles Knight
1572	John Knox and Scotland’s Reformation	Thomas Carlyle
1572	Scotland’s Presbyterian Reformation	Peter Hume Brown
1576	Building the First Theatre In England	Karl Mantzius
1576	Frobisher Searches for the Northwest Passage	George Best
1583	England’s First Overseas Colony	Moses Harvey
1584	Walter Raleigh’s American Investment	Arthur Barlow\| \|Robert R. Howison
1561-1587	The Career of Mary Queen of Scots	Algernon Charles Swinburne
1587	Drake Captures Cartegena; Raids Cadiz	Julian Corbett
1588	Defeat of the Spanish Armada	Sir Edward Creasy
1601	Hamlet, Drama’s Apex	James Halliwell-Phillipps
1603	Earls Flee Ireland	Justin McCarthy
1605	The Gunpowder Plot	Samuel R. Gardiner
1607	English Settle Virginia	Robert Reid Howison
Year	Title	Author(s)
1612	The Beginning of British Power in India	Henry Beckles Willson
1616	Blood Circulation Discovered	Thomas H. Huxley
1619	Slavery Injected Into Virginia	Charles Campbell\| \|John M. Ludlow
c 1620	The Birth of Modern Scientific Methods	George Henry Lewes
1630	Puritan’s Great Migration to New England	John G. Palfrey
1641	The End of the Star Chamber	Henry Hallam\| \|Thomas Macaulay
1643	Westminister Assembly Establishes Presbyterianism in England	David Masson
1649	The English Civil War	Lord Thomas Macaulay\| \|Charles Knight
1649	Cromwell’s Ireland Campaign	Frederic Harrison
1653	Cromwell’s Rule in England and the Restoration	Thomas Carlyle, John R. Green, and Samuel Pepys
1660	When Fighting Sail Matured	Alfred Thayer Mahan
1664	British Capture New York	John R. Brodhead
1665	Great London Plague	Daniel Defoe
1666	Discovery of Gravity	Sir David Brewster
1666	London’s Great Fire	John Evelyn
1671	Buccaneers Sack Panama	Johann W. Von Archenholz
1672	The Dutch Crisis 1672	C.M. Davies
1675	King Philip’s War	Richard Hildreth
1681	William Penn Founds Philadelphia	George E. Ellis
1685	Monmouth’s Rebellion	Gilbert Burnet
1688	The Glorious Revolution	Gilbert Burnet\| \|Henry Duff Traill
1689	Andros’ Stuart Rule in New England Ended	Charles Wyllys Elliott
1690	James II Invades Ireland	Tobias G. Smollott
1692	Salem Witchcraft Trials	Richard Hildreth
1694	The Bank of England Established	John Francis
1704	The Battle of Blenheim	Sir Edward Creasy
1707	Union of England and Scotland	John Hill Burton
1710	Great Britain Acquires Nova Scotia	Duncan Campbell
1720	The South Sea Bubble Bursts	Louis Adolphe Thiers
1732	Settlement of Georgia	William B. Stevens
1738	Wesley Begins Methodism	William E.H. Lecky
1740	The First Modern Novel	Edmund Gosse
1755	Exile of the French Settlers in Acadia	William H. Withrow
1755	Braddock’s Defeat	Winthrop Sargent\| \|George Washington\| \|Captain De Contrecoeur
1756-1763	The Seven Years War	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|Frederick The Great
1757	Clive Establishes British Supremacy in India	Sir Alexander J. Arbuthnot
1759	Britain Captures Quebec	Arthur G. Bradley
1763	Pontiac’s Uprising	E.O. Randall
1765	American Colonies Oppose the Stamp Act	James Grahame\| \|George Bancroft
1773	The Boston Tea Party	George Bancroft
to 1774	Cotton Industry’s Development	Thomas F. Henderson
1775	French in the Ohio Valley	Theodore Roosevelt
1775	Battle of Lexington	Richard Frothingham
1775	The Battle of Bunker Hill	John Burgoyne, James Grahame, and John Heneage Jesse

Year	Title	Author(s)
1777	The Battle of Saratoga	Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
1779	“I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!”	Alexander Slidell Mackenzie
1781	Yorktown Surrenders	Henry B. Dawson\| \|Lord Charles Cornwallis
1782	The Siege of Gibraltar	Frederick Sayer
1782	How the American Revolutionary War Ended	American Diplomatic Commission\| \|John M. Ludlow
1783	After the American Revolution, Where Did the Loyalists Go?	Sir John G. Bourinot
1798	Napoleon’s Egyptian War	Charles Knight
1798	Jenner Introduces Vaccination	Sir Thomas J. Pettigrew
1800	Ireland Joined to United Kingdom	William O’Connor Morris
1805	The Battle of Trafalgar	Robert Southey
1806	Cape Colony Acquired by Great Britain	Henry Bryden
1812	Canada Versus USA 1812-1814	Agnes M. Machar\| \|David Ramsay
1808-1813	Wellington’s Peninsular Campaign	John Richard Green
1813	Battle of Lake Erie	Theodore Roosevelt
1814	The Congress of Vienna 1814-15	Henry M. Stephens
1814	British Burns Washington, D.C.	Richard Hildreth\| \|George R. Gleig
1815	The Battle of New Orleans	James Parton
1815	The Battle of Waterloo	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|William Siborne\| \|Victor Hugo
1821-1824	Lord Byron and the Greek War of Independence	Lewis Sergeant\| \|John Nichol
1823	The Monroe Doctrine	Alfred Thayer Mahan
1827	The Battle of Navarino	Harriet Martineau
1829	The First Railroad	Samuel Smiles
1829	Catholic Emancipation in Ireland	William E. Gladstone\| \|William E.H. Lecky\| \|Daniel O’Connell
1832	English Reform Bill of 1832 Passes	Sir Thomas Erskine May
1833	The European Slave Trade Abolished	John Kells Ingram
1837	The 1837 Canadian Rebellion	George Bryce
1840	The Opium War of 1840	Demetrius Charles Boulger
1841	Upper and Lower Canada United	John Charles Dent
1846	Corn Laws Repealed in England	Justin Mccarthy
1846	Neptune Discovered	Sir Oliver Lodge
1847	Great Potato Famine in Ireland	Sir Charles Gavan Duffy
1855	Capture of Sevastopol Ends Crimean War	Edward B. Hamley\| \|Evelyn Wood
1857	The Sepoy Mutiny	J. Talboys Wheeler
1859	Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Published	Charles Robert Darwin
1866	The Laying of the Atlantic Cable	Cyrus W. Field
1867	Canadian Confederation Established	Joseph Edmund Collins
1867	Diamonds Discovered in South Africa	Gardner F. Williams
1869	Fur Companies Abolished	G. Mercer Adam
1869	The Suez Canal Opens	Gardiner Greene Hubbard
1873	Communist International 1864-1873	Thomas Kirkup
1878	The Berlin Congress of 1878	Stephen P.H. Duggan
1885	Great Britain Expands Control of Egypt	James Franck Bright
1898	Meeting at Fashoda	Winston S. Churchill
1900	The Boer War	Arthur Conan Doyle\| \|James F.J. Archibald\| \|J. Castell Hopkins
1901	Australian Confederation Proclaimed	J. Grattan Grey
1903	The Alaskan Boundary Settlement	John W. Foster\| \|F. C. Wade\| \|Goldwin Smith
1909	Radios’ First Triumph	\|Edward J. Wheeler\| \|Gugllelmo Marconi\| \|Arthur D. H. Smith
1910	Militarism Before World War I	Norman Angell
1911	English House of Lords Falls	Arthur Ponsonby\| \|Sydney Brooks\| \|Captain George Swinton
1912	The Sinking of the Titanic	William Inglis
c. 1914	Women’s Suffrage Movement	Ida Husted Harper\| \|Israel Zangwill\| \|Jane Addams\| \|David Lloyd-George\| \|Elbert Hubbard
1914	Britain Prepares for World War I	Winston S. Churchill
1918	How to Handle Arabs	Lowell Thomas
1944	D-Day Summary (infographic)	Corey Truman

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