| |
Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1908 | |
| 2 | 1909 | - 4 Mar 1909—3 Mar 1913: William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States
William Howard Taft
|
| 3 | 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
|
| 4 | 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
|
| 5 | 1912 | - 1912: Irish Home Rule crisis grows in Britain
- 1912: Britain nationalises the telephone system
- 1912: Discovery of the 'Piltdown Man'
- 18 Jan 1912: Captain Scott's last expedition
- 14 Apr 1912: The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks on maiden voyage
- 13 May 1912: Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) founded in Britain
|
| 6 | 1913 | - 1913: Third Irish Home Rule Bill rejected by House of Lords
- 1913: Suffragette demonstrations in London
- 1913: Trade Union Act in Britain establishes the right to use Union funds for political
purposes
- 1913: Invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearley of Sheffield
- 1913: Geiger invents his counter to measure radioactivity
- 4 Mar 1913—3 Mar 1921: Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States
Woodrow Wilson
- 4 Jun 1913: Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of the king's horse, Anmer, at the
Epsom Derby and dies
|
| 7 | 1914 | - 1914: Irish Home Rule Act provides for a separate Parliament in Ireland; the position of Ulster
to be decided after the War
- 1914: Chaplin and De Mille make their first films
- 28 Jun 1914: Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo
- 4 Aug 1914: Britain declares war on Germany, citing Belgian neutrality as reason
- 5 Aug 1914: British cableship Telconia cut through all five of Germany's undersea telegraph
links to the outside world
- 15 Aug 1914: Panama Canal opened, the Canal cement boat 'Ancon' making the first official
transit (plans for a grand opening were cancelled due to the start of WW1)
- Oct 1914: Battle of Ypres
- 27 Nov 1914: First policewoman goes on duty in Britain
- 16 Dec 1914: German battleships bombard Hartlepool and Scarborough
|
| 8 | 1915 | - 1915: Junkers construct first fighter aeroplane
- 1915: First automatic telephone exchange in Britain
- 19 Jan 1915: First Zeppelin air raid on England, over East Anglia
- Feb 1915: Submarine blockade of Britain starts
- Apr 1915: Second Battle of Ypres
- 25 Apr 1915: Gallipoli campaign starts (declared ANZAC Day in 1916)
- 7 May 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off coast of Ireland
- 16 May 1915: First meeting of a British WI (Women's Institute) took place in Llanfairpwll
(aka Llanfair PG), Anglesey
|
| 9 | 1916 | - 1916: Compulsory military service introduced in Britain
- Feb 1916: Battle of Verdun
- 24 Apr 1916: Easter Rising in Ireland
- 21 May 1916: First use of Daylight Saving Time in UK
- 31 May 1916: Battle of Jutland
- 5 Jun 1916: Sinking of HMS Hampshire and death of Kitchener
- 3 Aug 1916: Sir Roger Casement hanged at Pentonville Prison for treason
- 15 Sep 1916: First use of tanks in battle, but of limited effect (Battle of the Somme 1 July to 18 Nov: over 1 million casualties)
- 7 Dec 1916: Lloyd-George becomes British Prime Minister of the coalition government
- 7 Dec 1916—19 Oct 1922: David Lloyd George, UK Prime Minister (Liberal)
David Lloyd George
|
| 10 | 1917 | - 1917: Battle of Cambrai
- 1917: Ministry of Labour is established in Britain
- Feb 1917: February revolution in Russia; Tsar Nicholas abdicates
- 6 Apr 1917: World War I
- 16 Apr 1917: Lenin returns to Russia after exile
- 17 Apr 1917: USA declares war on Germany
- 26 May 1917: George V changes surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (Royal
proclamation on 17 July)
- Jul 1917: Battle of Passchendaele
- 7 Nov 1917: 'October' Revolution in Russia
- 6 Dec 1917: Halifax (Nova Scotia) Explosion, one of the world's largest artificial non-nuclear
explosions to date: a ship loaded with wartime explosives blew up after a collision,
obliterating buildings and structures within two square kilometres of the explosion
- 9 Dec 1917: British forces capture Jerusalem
|
| 11 | 1918 | - 1918: Vote for women over 30, men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons)
- 1918: War of Independence in Ireland
- 1918: Epidemic
The Spanish flu caused over 20 million deaths worldwide
- 18 Jan 1918: Bentley Motors founded
- 8 Mar 1918: Start of world-wide 'flu pandemic
- Jul 1918: Second Battle of the Marne: last major German offensive in WW1 (Jul-Aug)
- 1 Oct 1918: Arab forces under Lawrence of Arabia capture Damascus
- 11 Nov 1918: Armistice signed
- Dec 1918: First woman elected to House of Commons, Countess Markiewicz as a Sinn F
|
| 12 | 1919 | - 1919: Britain adopts a 48-hour working week
- 1919: Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting the atom
- 15 Jun 1919: Alcock and Brown complete first nonstop flight across the Atlantic
- 28 Jun 1919: Treaty of Versailles signed
|
| 13 | 1920 | - 1920: Regular cross-channel air service starts
- 1920: Marconi opens a radio broadcasting station in Britain
- 1920: Thompson patents his machine gun (Tommy gun)
- Feb 1920: First roadside petrol filling station in UK
|
| 14 | 1921 | - 1921: Railway Act in Britain amalgamates companies
- 1921: Insulin discovery announced
- 1921: First birth control clinic
- 4 Mar 1921—2 Aug 1923: Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th President of the United States
Warren Gamaliel Harding
- 19 Jun 1921: Census: Population - England and Wales: 37.9 Million; Scotland: 4.9 Million; N Ireland: 1.25 Million
- 6 Dec 1921: Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in London, leading to the formation of the Irish Free
State and Northern Ireland
|
| 15 | 1922 | - 1922: Law of Property Act
- 1 Jun 1922: Royal Ulster Constabulary founded
- Oct 1922: BBC established as a monopoly, and begins transmissions in November (2LO in
London on 14 Nov; 5IT in Birmingham and 2ZY in Manchester on 15 Nov)
- 23 Oct 1922—20 May 1923: Andrew Bonar Law, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Andrew Bonar Law
|
| 16 | 1923 | - 1923: Roads in Great Britain classified with A and B numbers
- 1923: Hubble shows there are galaxies beyond the Milky Way
- 1923: First American broadcasts heard in Britain
- 1923: Netherlands
Queen Wilhelmina celebrates its 25th jubilee
- 1 Jan 1923: The majority of the railway companies in Great Britain grouped into four main
companies, the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, LMSR
- 16 Feb 1923: Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun
- 28 Apr 1923: First Wembley cup final (West Ham 0, Bolton 2)
- 23 May 1923—16 Jan 1924: Stanley Baldwin, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Stanley Baldwin
- 2 Aug 1923—3 Mar 1929: Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States
Calvin Coolidge
- 28 Sep 1923: First publication of Radio Times
|
| 17 | 1924 | - 4 Jan 1924: First Labour government in Britain, headed by Ramsay MacDonald
- 22 Jan 1924—4 Nov 1924: James Ramsay MacDonald, UK Prime Minister (Labour)
James Ramsay MacDonald
- 5 Feb 1924: Hourly Greenwich Time Signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory were
first broadcast by the BBC
- 31 Mar 1924: British Imperial Airways begins operations (formed by merger of four British
airline companies
- 4 Nov 1924—5 Jun 1929: Stanley Baldwin, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Stanley Baldwin
|
| 18 | 1925 | - 1925: Britain returns to gold standard
- 18 Jul 1925: Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf
|
| 19 | 1926 | - 1926: First public demonstration of television (TV) by John Logie Baird
- 1926: Adoption of children is legalised in Britain
- 1926: Kodak produces 16mm movie film
- 1926: Walt Disney arrives in Hollywood
- 21 Apr 1926: Princess Elizabeth born
- 3 May 1926: General Strike begins. Lasts until May 12 (mine workers for 6 months more)
- 31 Oct 1926: Death of Harry Houdini
|
| 20 | 1927 | - 1927: Release of the first 'talkie' film (The Jazz Singer)
- 7 Jan 1927: First transatlantic telephone call
- 22 Jan 1927: First football broadcast by BBC (Arsenal v Sheffield United at Highbury)
- 1 May 1927: First cooked meals on a scheduled flight introduced by Imperial Airways from
London to Paris
- 20 May 1927: Lindbergh makes solo flight across the Atlantic, in 33
- 31 May 1927: Last Ford Model T rolls off assembly line
- 24 Jul 1927: The Menin Gate war memorial unveiled at Ypres
|
| 21 | 1928 | - 1928: Women over 21 get vote in Britain
- 26 Apr 1928: Madame Tussauds opens in London
- 15 Sep 1928: Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers penicillin (results published 1929)
|
| 22 | 1929 | - 1929: Abolition of Poor Law system in Britain
- 1929: Minimum age for a marriage in Britain (which had been 14 for a boy and 12 for a girl)
now 16 for both sexes, with parental consent (or a licence) needed for anyone under 21
- 1929: BBC begins experimental TV transmissions
- 1929: US Stock Market
The stock market crash in New York.
- 1929—1935: James Ramsay MacDonald, UK Prime Minister (Labour)
James Ramsay MacDonald
- 4 Mar 1929—3 Mar 1933: Herbert Clark Hoover, 31st President of the United States
Herbert Clark Hoover
|
| 23 | 1930 | - 1930: First Nazis elected to the German Reichstag
- 1930: Youth Hostel Association (YHA) founded in Britain
- 30 Jan 1930: Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany
- 31 Jan 1930: 3M begins marketing Scotch Tape
- 6 Mar 1930: Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas
- 5 Oct 1930: R101 airship disaster
|
| 24 | 1931 | - 1931: Statute of Westminster: British Dominions become independent sovereign states
- 1931: Collapse of the German banking system; 3,000 banks there close
- 1931: The unemployment rate in the Netherlands soars to unprecedented heights.
- 14 Apr 1931: Highway Code first issued
- 26 Apr 1931: Census: Population - England and Wales; 40 Million; Scotland: 4.8 Million; N Ireland: 1.24 Million (Unfortunately, the census was destroyed by fire in WW2)
- 21 Oct 1931: National Government formed to deal with economic crisis
|
| 25 | 1932 | - 1932: Great Hunger March of unemployed to London
- 1932: Moseley founds British Union of Fascists
- 1932: Cockroft and Walton accelerate particles to disintegrate an atomic nucleus
- 1932: Sir Thomas Beecham established the London Philharmonic Orchestra
- 21 May 1932: Amelia Earhart first solo nonstop flight across Atlantic by a female pilot
- 3 Oct 1932: Iraq gains independence from Britain
- 3 Oct 1932: 'The Times' introduces 'Times New Roman' typeface
|
| 26 | 1933 | - 1933: ICI scientists discover polythene
- 1933: Only 6 pennies minted in Britain this year
- 4 Mar 1933—12 Apr 1945: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- 12 Nov 1933: First known photos of the 'Loch Ness Monster' taken
|
| 27 | 1934 | - 1934: Hitler becomes Fuehrer of Germany
- 18 Jul 1934: King George V opens Mersey Tunnel
- 26 Sep 1934: RMS Queen Mary launched
- 30 Nov 1934: First time a steam locomotive travels at 100 mph ('Flying Scotsman')
|
1910 - 1934 (24 years)
