Politics & society history timeline
Laws, revolutions, votes and movements that shaped how people live together.
154 events, oldest first.
Timeline of Politics & society history
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1804
Napoleon is crowned Emperor of the French
At the ceremony in Notre-Dame, he placed the crown on his own head.
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1807
Britain abolishes the slave trade
The Act banned trading enslaved people, but slavery itself lasted in the colonies until the 1830s.
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1809
Abraham Lincoln is born
He was born on exactly the same day as Charles Darwin: 12 February 1809.
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1815
Wellington defeats Napoleon at Waterloo
Wellington called it 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life'.
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1821
Napoleon dies in exile on St Helena
The remote island lies in the South Atlantic, about 1,900 km from Africa.
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1823
The Monroe Doctrine is declared
It warned European powers against new colonies in the Americas.
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1830
Belgium becomes independent
Its revolution reportedly began after a performance at the opera.
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1832
The Great Reform Act is passed
It abolished 'rotten boroughs' where a handful of voters elected an MP.
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1833
Slavery is abolished in the British Empire
Slave owners were paid huge compensation; the people enslaved received nothing.
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1834
The Tolpuddle Martyrs are transported
Six farm labourers were sent to Australia for forming a trade union.
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1837
Victoria becomes Queen
She came to the throne aged 18 and reigned for more than 63 years.
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1838
Queen Victoria is crowned
During the ceremony, the coronation ring was forced onto the wrong finger.
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1839
The Chartists present their first petition
It had more than a million signatures and was rejected by Parliament.
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1840
The Penny Black stamp is issued
It showed Queen Victoria, and British stamps still carry no country name to this day.
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1840
The Treaty of Waitangi is signed
It is considered New Zealand's founding document, signed by Māori chiefs and the British Crown.
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1843
The first Christmas card is sent
Sir Henry Cole commissioned it because he was too busy to write individual letters.
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1848
Revolutions sweep across Europe
Uprisings broke out in dozens of states, but most were crushed within a year.
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1848
The Seneca Falls women's rights convention
Its Declaration of Sentiments demanded the vote for women.
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1849
Elizabeth Blackwell earns a US medical degree
Her admission to medical school was reportedly approved by students as a joke.
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1849
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery
She went back again and again to lead others to freedom.
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1850
Britain's Public Libraries Act is passed
It allowed towns to set up free public libraries.
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1851
Louis-Napoleon seizes power in France
Napoleon's nephew made himself Emperor Napoleon III a year later.
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1856
The Victoria Cross is created
The medals are said to be cast from Russian guns captured in the Crimea.
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1857
The Dred Scott decision
The Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans could not be US citizens.
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1858
The Lincoln-Douglas debates
Lincoln lost the Senate race but became famous nationwide.
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1860
Abraham Lincoln is elected president
He was not even on the ballot in ten southern states.
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1861
Russia frees its serfs
Tsar Alexander II's decree freed around 23 million people.
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1862
The Homestead Act is signed
It offered 160 acres of free land to settlers who farmed it for five years.
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1863
Lincoln gives the Gettysburg Address
It is just 272 words long and took about two minutes to deliver.
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1863
The Red Cross is founded
Its founder, Henri Dunant, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize.
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1865
Abraham Lincoln is assassinated
He died 11 years before the telephone was patented, relying instead on the telegraph.
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1865
The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes US slavery
Mississippi only formally completed its ratification in 2013.
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1869
Wyoming gives women the vote
It was the first US territory to grant women the right to vote.
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1870
Britain makes elementary schooling available to all
The Education Act set up school boards across England and Wales.
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1876
Japan bans samurai from carrying swords
The Haitōrei edict came the same year Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.
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1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed
It was the first US law to ban immigration by a specific nationality.
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1883
Bismarck introduces state health insurance
Germany's scheme became a model for welfare states worldwide.
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1884
The Berlin Conference carves up Africa
Not a single African was present at the talks.
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1886
Geronimo surrenders
He later rode in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.
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1888
Brazil abolishes slavery
It was the last country in the Americas to do so.
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1890
Japan holds its first general election
Only about 1% of the population was allowed to vote.
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1892
Keir Hardie becomes Britain's first Labour MP
He shocked MPs by arriving in a tweed suit and cap instead of a top hat.
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1893
New Zealand gives women the vote
It became the first self-governing country where women could vote in national elections.
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1896
Ethiopia defeats Italy at the Battle of Adwa
The victory kept Ethiopia independent during the Scramble for Africa.
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1901
Australia becomes a federation
Six British colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia.
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1901
The first Nobel Prizes are awarded
Alfred Nobel funded them with a fortune made largely from dynamite.
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1901
Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
At 42, he is still the youngest person to become US president.
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1903
Emmeline Pankhurst founds the WSPU
Its members became known as the suffragettes.
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1906
Finnish women gain the vote
Finland was the first European country to give women full voting rights.
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1908
Britain introduces the old age pension
It paid five shillings a week to people over 70.
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1911
The Xinhai Revolution begins in China
It ended more than 2,000 years of imperial rule in China.
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1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated
His driver took a wrong turn and stopped right next to the assassin.
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1916
Jeannette Rankin becomes the first congresswoman
She was elected to Congress four years before most American women could vote.
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1916
The Easter Rising in Dublin
The rebels' proclamation was read outside the General Post Office.
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1917
The Balfour Declaration
The letter backed 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine.
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1918
Russia adopts the Gregorian calendar
That's why Russia's October Revolution actually happened in November by modern dates.
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1918
Some British women vote for the first time
At first, only women over 30 who met a property qualification could vote.
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1919
Nancy Astor takes her seat in Parliament
She was the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons.
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1920
American women win the right to vote
Tennessee's deciding vote came from a young legislator who had a letter from his mother.
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1920
Prohibition begins in the United States
Alcohol was banned nationwide for almost 14 years.
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1922
The Irish Free State is established
Michael Collins called the treaty 'the freedom to achieve freedom'.
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1922
The Ottoman Empire is dissolved
The empire lasted over 600 years, from before Machu Picchu was built until after the First World War.
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1922
The Soviet Union is formed
The USSR lasted almost 70 years.
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1923
Atatürk founds the Republic of Turkey
Turkey switched from Arabic to Latin script just five years later.
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1924
Lenin dies
His embalmed body is still on display in Moscow's Red Square.
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1926
Queen Elizabeth II is born
She was born in the same year as Marilyn Monroe.
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1928
British women win equal voting rights
The voting age for women was lowered from 30 to 21, matching men.
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1929
The Wall Street Crash
Share prices didn't regain their pre-crash peak until 1954.
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1930
Gandhi leads the Salt March
He walked about 390 km to the sea to make salt in protest.
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1931
The Statute of Westminster
It made dominions like Canada and Australia legally independent of the British Parliament.
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1933
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
He was appointed rather than elected to the role.
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1933
Prohibition ends in the United States
It ended after 13 years, partly to raise tax money during the Great Depression.
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1933
Roosevelt launches the New Deal
His first 100 days set a benchmark for every president since.
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1934
Turkish women gain the national vote
Turkey gave women the vote a decade before France and twelve years before Italy.
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1935
The US Social Security Act is signed
The first monthly payment went to a retired legal secretary named Ida May Fuller.
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1936
Edward VIII abdicates
He reigned for less than a year and was never crowned.
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1944
Iceland becomes an independent republic
It declared itself a republic while Denmark was occupied during the Second World War.
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1944
The D-Day landings
It was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
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1945
French women vote for the first time
France gave women the vote in 1944, and they first used it in municipal elections in 1945.
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1945
The Second World War ends
Japan's formal surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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1945
The United Nations is founded
Its charter was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco.
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1946
Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech
He gave it at a small college in Fulton, Missouri.
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1947
India gains independence
Independence came at midnight, after Nehru's 'tryst with destiny' speech.
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1947
Japan's post-war constitution takes effect
Its Article 9 renounces war as a sovereign right.
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1948
South Africa introduces apartheid
Apartheid laws stayed in force for more than 40 years.
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1948
The Berlin Airlift begins
Pilots dropped sweets on tiny parachutes for Berlin's children.
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1948
The Marshall Plan begins
The US gave around $13 billion to help rebuild Western Europe.
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1948
The NHS is founded
Britain's National Health Service offered free care to everyone at the point of use.
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1948
The State of Israel is declared
David Ben-Gurion read the declaration in a Tel Aviv museum.
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1948
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the committee that drafted it.
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1949
NATO is founded
Its 12 founding members agreed that an attack on one was an attack on all.
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1949
The People's Republic of China is founded
Mao Zedong proclaimed it from Tiananmen Gate in Beijing.
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1950
India becomes a republic
Its constitution is the longest written national constitution in the world.
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1950
The European Convention on Human Rights is signed
Winston Churchill was one of its early champions.
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1952
Einstein is offered the presidency of Israel
He politely declined, saying he lacked the aptitude for dealing with people.
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1953
The Korean War armistice is signed
No peace treaty was ever signed, so the war has never officially ended.
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1954
Brown v. Board of Education ends school segregation
The Supreme Court decision was unanimous.
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1955
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat
Her arrest sparked the year-long Montgomery bus boycott.
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1957
Ghana wins independence
It was the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence.
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1957
The Treaty of Rome is signed
It set up the European Economic Community, forerunner of the EU.
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1959
Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba
He went on to rule Cuba for almost 50 years.
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1959
Hawaii becomes the 50th US state
It is the only US state made up entirely of islands.
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1959
The Antarctic Treaty is signed
It sets aside the whole continent for peace and science.
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1960
Nigeria gains independence
It is now Africa's most populous country.
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1960
The world's first female prime minister
Sri Lanka's Sirimavo Bandaranaike took office 19 years before Margaret Thatcher.
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1961
The Berlin Wall is built
It went up almost overnight, starting with barbed wire on 13 August.
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1962
Algeria wins independence from France
It followed an eight-year war of independence.
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1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis
For 13 days, the world was closer to nuclear war than ever before.
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1963
Kenya gains independence
Jomo Kenyatta became its first prime minister, and later president.
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1963
Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech
The 'dream' passage was partly improvised after singer Mahalia Jackson urged him on.
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1964
The US Civil Rights Act is signed
It outlawed discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
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1965
Singapore becomes independent
It was expelled from Malaysia, and its leader wept on television.
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1965
The US Voting Rights Act is signed
It banned literacy tests used to stop Black Americans voting.
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1966
Indira Gandhi becomes India's prime minister
She was the daughter of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
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1967
The Outer Space Treaty is signed
It bans any nation from claiming the Moon or planets.
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1969
Golda Meir becomes Israel's prime minister
She had grown up in Milwaukee and worked there as a teacher.
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1969
The Stonewall riots
The New York uprising helped launch the modern gay rights movement.
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1970
The first gay pride marches are held
They marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
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1971
Bangladesh becomes independent
It had previously been East Pakistan.
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1971
Swiss women gain the vote in national elections
Switzerland gave women the national vote two years after the Moon landing.
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1973
The UK joins the European Economic Community
Denmark and Ireland joined on the same day.
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1974
Hiroo Onoda finally surrenders in the Philippines
The Japanese soldier fought on in the jungle for 29 years, until his old commander relieved him.
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1974
President Nixon resigns over Watergate
He is the only US president ever to resign.
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1975
General Franco dies
Spain returned to democracy within a few years of his death.
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1976
Iceland wins the last Cod War
Iceland threatened to quit NATO and close a key US air base.
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1979
The first direct European Parliament elections
Voters in nine countries took part.
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1980
Zimbabwe gains independence
Bob Marley performed at the independence celebrations.
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1986
People Power topples Ferdinand Marcos
Corazon Aquino became the Philippines' first female president.
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1986
Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik
The two leaders came close to agreeing to scrap all nuclear weapons.
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1987
Black Monday stock market crash
The Dow Jones fell about 22% in a single day.
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1987
The Montreal Protocol is signed
It phased out the chemicals that were damaging the ozone layer.
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1989
The Berlin Wall falls
It opened after an official mistakenly announced the border was open 'immediately'.
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1990
Germany is reunified
Reunification came less than a year after the Berlin Wall fell.
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1990
Namibia gains independence
It was one of the last African countries to gain independence.
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1990
Nelson Mandela is released from prison
He had spent 27 years behind bars.
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1991
The Soviet Union is dissolved
It ended on Christmas Day, when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned.
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1992
The Maastricht Treaty creates the European Union
It also laid the groundwork for the euro.
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1994
Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa
He was elected in the country's first fully democratic election.
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1997
The Kyoto Protocol is adopted
It was the first treaty setting binding targets to cut greenhouse gases.
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1998
The Good Friday Agreement is signed
It was approved by large majorities in referendums on both sides of the Irish border.
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1999
Scotland's devolved parliament opens
It was the first Scottish parliament in nearly 300 years.
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2001
The Netherlands legalises same-sex marriage
It was the first country in the world to do so.
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2002
East Timor becomes independent
It was the first new sovereign state of the 21st century.
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2002
Euro notes and coins enter circulation
It was the biggest cash changeover in history, across 12 countries at once.
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2005
Angela Merkel becomes German chancellor
She was Germany's first female chancellor and served for 16 years.
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2008
Barack Obama is elected US president
He was the first African American elected to the office.
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2011
South Sudan becomes independent
It is the world's newest country.
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2014
Scotland votes in an independence referendum
Scots voted 55% to 45% to stay in the UK.
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2015
The Paris climate agreement is adopted
Nearly every country agreed to try to limit warming to well below 2°C.
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2016
The UK votes to leave the European Union
The referendum result was 52% to 48%.
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2018
Saudi Arabia lifts its ban on women driving
It was the last country in the world to allow women to drive.
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2020
COVID-19 is declared a pandemic
It was the first pandemic declared since swine flu in 2009.
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2022
Queen Elizabeth II dies
She reigned for 70 years, longer than any other British monarch.
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2023
Charles III is crowned
At 74, he was the oldest British monarch ever crowned.
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