Queen Anne (the last of the Stuarts): 1702-1714

1707: Act of Union by which Scotland and Wales are now declared part of Great Britain.

Death of Emperor Aurangazeb, the last of the Mughal rulers of India.This paves the way for greater British encroachment through the East India Company.

1713: Britain obtains The Assiento: contract to supply slaves to Spanish colonies.

George I: 1714-1727 The German Prince (rise of

modern constitutional monarchy)

1720: The South Sea Bubble: a great financial disaster

1723: The Workhouse Act or Test (to get relief, the poor person has to enter the Workhouse). The Waltham Black Act adds 50 capital offenses to the penal code: people could be sentenced to death for theft and poaching. This Act has been said to "signal the onset of the floodtide of eighteenth-century retributive justice" (Thompson 23). Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate.

George II: 1727-1760 1730: Famine in Ireland (Swift writes “A Modest

Proposal” in 1729) 1730: Robert Walpole becomes Prime Minister 1739- War with Spain, incited by William Pitt the

elder for the sake of trade. 1742: Robert Walpole retires as Prime Minister 1745: Last Jacobite rebellion suppressed. Tories

attempt to restore a Stuart (Charles Edward Stuart, the young pretender, the grandson of James II and his Catholic wife Mary of Modena) to the English throne

George II: 1727-1760

1756-1763: Seven years war with France. 1757: Conquest of Bengal, India at the Battle of

Plassey by Robert Clive. India is now of military/ colonial interest, not just trade.

1760: Beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Beginning of a campaign against the use of children as chimney sweeps by Jonas Hanway and D. Porter.

George III 1760-1820

1763: Peace with France, returns Newfoundland fishing rights, Guadaloupe and Martininque [sugar trade], Dakar [gum trade].

1767: First iron railroads built for mines by John Wilkinson 1770: Hargreaves's jenny invented (textile production) 1775: American War of Independence begins. George suffers bouts

of insanity. 1783: William Pitt the younger becomes Prime Minister. 1784: Sir William Jones founds the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1788: King George III's mental illness occasions the Regency

Crisis: Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox attack the ministry of William Pitt the Younger by trying to obtain full regal powers for the Prince of Wales.

George III 1760-1820

1788: Child Labor: Law is passed requiring that chimney sweepers be a minimum of 8 years old (not enforced).

1788-1792: Usually considered the period of mass abolitionist agitation, led by Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Pitt. The West Indian port system is renewed and expanded (through 1792). Government seeks to expand British colonial cotton growth.

1789: Fall of the Bastille, the beginning of the French Revolution.

French Revolution

1789: Constituent Assembly (formerly the National Assembly) ratifies The Declaration of the Rights of Man, abolished Feudalism, and drafts a constitution limiting the monarchy. Jacobins, at first the liberal, then increasing radical wing of the assembly, gain power.

1791: Hatian Revolution. First and Greatest of Slave rebellions in the French colony of San Domingo.

1793: Execution of Louis XVI and later the same year Queen Marie Antoinette.

France and England

1793: France declares war against England. The two nations are constantly at war until 1815, except for a brief year 1802-1803 the Peace of Amiens.

1793-1794: Reign of Terror in France. 1799: Napoleon named First Consul for

Life. In 1804, crowns himself Emperor.

1811: The Regency

George III is declared insane and the Prince is appointed Regent.

First gentleman of Europe. Known for his luxurious living and interest in city planning.

1815: Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo 1819: The “Peterloo” massacre: a peaceful

demonstration by a 100,000 mill workers near Manchester is brutally suppressed by local gentry, leaving a dozen dead and trampled (including children) and hundreds injured.

Crowned George IV (1820-1830)