1066 Norman Conquest

1069 -70 Harrying of the North

1086 Domesday Book

1088 Earldom of Surrey created for William de Warenne 1st Earl of Surrey shortly before his death in the same year. Possibly included the Manor of Wakefield.

1096 -99 First Crusade

1147 -49 Second Crusade

1170 Thomas Becket murdered

1189 -92 Third Crusade

1199 Richard I dies having spent most of his reign abroad; succeeded by his brother John (to 1216) 

1201 -04 Fourth Crusade

1217 -21 Fifth Crusade

1217 'Charter of the Forest' by Henry III established that all freemen owning land within the forest enjoyed the rights of agistment (grazing cattle) and pannage (grazing pigs) 

1222 Introduction of a poll tax in England 

1228 -29 Sixth Crusade

1235 Statute of Merton – considered to be the first English statute – authorised manorial lords to enclose portions of commons and wastes provided that sufficient pasture remained for his tenants

1237 Treaty of York signed by Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland – set the border between England and Scotland, which remains to this day except round Berwick

1248 -54 Seventh Crusade

1257 Mega volcanic eruption in Indonesia and subsequent whole-earth weather events. Sun obscured by cloud for months on end, extremely cold winter, torrential summer rain, crop failures and famine in 1258.

1258 Incessant rains, terrible floods, severe cold and disasterous harvests that led to famine – now attributed to the eruption in the previous year of the volvano Samalas in what is now Indonesia

1265 First elected English parliament (De Montfort's Parliament) conducts its first meeting, in the Palace of Westminster 

1270 Eighth Crusade

1272 Edward I (who was away on the 9th Crusade) declared king of England following the death of his father Henry III 

1279 A major re-coinage introduced new denominations. In addition to the penny, the halfpenny and farthing were minted, and also a fourpenny piece called a 'groat'; the penny had existed since King Offa divided a pound of silver into 240 silver pennies

1296 Annexation of Scotland by England – Scotland's Coronation Stone the "Stone of Destiny" or "Stone of Scone" was removed to Westminster Abbey by Edward I, temporarily 'returned' to Scotland in 1950, and permanently returned in 1996 

1306 Robert the Bruce crowned King Robert I of Scots 

1307 Reign of Edward II begins

1314 Bad harvest leading to terrible famine

1314 Scots under Robert the Bruce routed the English led by Edward II resulting in Scottish independence. After Bannockburn the Scots raided Craven and reduced Bingley to ashes (Speight: Chronicles & Stories of Old Bingley p112-113)

1315 Terrible famine

1318 Bad weather / sheep & cattle diseases

1319 Bad weather / sheep & cattle diseases

1327 Reign of Edward II begins

1337 -1453 100 Years’ War with France

1338 Edward III asserts his claim to the French throne – 'Hundred Years War' begins (to 1453)

1346 Battle of Crécy – military supremacy of the English longbow established, and that of 'peasant' archers over knights on horseback

1348 Black Death arrived in England

1349 Black Death reaches England (entered Europe in 1346/7 and lasted until 1351) – this was the first return of plague to Europe for almost 400 years. Plague took several months to spread to the north, eventually arriving in Hull followed a month later by York

1349 -50 45% of West Riding clergy died of plague and, for example, 48% of tenants of Bilton with Harrogate died

1361 Second severe outbreak of of the Black Death

1361 -62 Significant outbreak of plague in Yorkshire

1362 English becomes official language in English Parliament and Law Courts 

1369 Another significant outbreak of plague in Yorkshire

1371 Experimental subsidy levied on parishes

1377 Edward III dies, age 65: Richard II rules until deposed in 1399

1377 Poll Tax of 4d (a groat) per adult (except beggars & clergy) levied to fund war in France. Adults deemed to be anyone over age 14.

1379 A revised Poll Tax levied – graduated according to level of personal wealth, with a base rate of 4d. Lower age limit raised to 16.

1380 Parliament approved yet another Poll Tax to be collected March 1381. Lower age limit changed to 15.

1381 Wat Tyler killed at Smithfield, London, during Peasants' Revolt in protest against poll tax of 1380

1382 First translation of the Bible into English, by John Wycliffe 

1383 Regular series of Wills starts in Prerogative Court of Canterbury 

1399 Deposition of King Richard II; Henry IV establishes Lancastrian dynasty 

1400 Average life expectancy had dropped to 38 years (had been 48 years in 1300), skewed by the Black Death and large families with high infant mortality

1413 Reign of Henry V begins

1415 Battle of Agincourt

1417 Henry V starts using English (rather than French) in his correspondence

1422 Infant Henry VI (9 months old) on throne of England 

1431 Henry VI of England crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris

1432–1438 Climate: Britain snowbound for 6 of these 7 winters

1453 End of Hundred Years' War (Battle of Castillon, Jul 17) 

1455 -1487 Wars of the Roses

1455 Battle of St Albans, first battle in Wars of the Roses; Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures Henry VI

1460 Dec 16 Battle of Worksop

1460 Dec 30 Battle of Wakefield

1461 Battle of Towton – probably the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil: Henry VI flees to Scotland; Edward, Duke of York, crowned as Edward IV

1470 Henry VI restored to the throne

1471 Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at Barnet; Edward IV resumes the throne; Henry VI murdered in the Tower of London

1483 Murder of the princes (Edward V and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury) in the Tower; their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester becomes king (Richard III) 

1484 Introduction of bail for defendants in legal courts 

1484 English first used for parliamentary statutes

1485 Battle of Bosworth Field; Richard III killed; beginning of the Tudor dynasty with Henry VII

1485 First outbreak of the deadly English Sweating Sickness – sufferers developed a rapid progression of symptoms, dying within hours. Cause uncertain. In London 15,000 died in six weeks.

1487 Battle of Stoke Field – Henry VII's final victory in War of the Roses

1487 The Malleus Maleficarum, or notorious ‘Witch Hunter’s Bible’, first published

1489 A pound coin (the 'sovereign') minted for the first time. A shilling coin was minted for the first time a few years later

1492 Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (West Indies)

1497 Vasco da Gama sets sail on first direct European voyage to India.

1502 Further outbreak of English Sweating Sickness

1507 -08 Less widespread outbreak of English Sweating Sickness

1507 Suggestion put forward that the New World be named America in honour of Amerigo Vespucci

1509 Reign of Henry VIII begins

1512 Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, exhibited to the public for the first time 

1517 Enquiry found 84 examples of village destruction in Yorks, involving 7,848 acres of land and demolition of 232 homes

1517 Outbreak of English Sweating Sickness reached epidemic proportions. Some towns said to have lost half their population [unsupported]

1518 Treaty of London, a non-aggression pact between the major European nations: France, England, Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, Spain, Burgundy and the Netherlands

1520 Three ships under the command of Ferdinand Magellan negotiate the Strait of Magellan, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific 

1522 The Victoria, one of the surviving ships of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, becomes the first ship known to circumnavigate the world 

1528 Further epidemic of English Sweating Sickness, spreading throughout Europe

1531 Henry VIII recognised as Supreme Head of the Church of England

1534 Reformation of the Catholic Church in England church by Henry VIII

1536 Dissolution of monasteries starts in England

1536 Pilgrimage of Grace – Nicholas Tempest of Ackworth was one of the instigators who were hanged

1538 English and Welsh parish registers start 

1540 Thomas Cromwell executed

1542 Death of King James V of Scotland; his baby daughter Mary "Queen of Scots" succeeds him, just 6 days old 

1545 The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII, sinks in the Solent

1547 Death of Henry VIII; succeeded by Edward VI, aged 9

1547 English replaced Latin in church services in England and Wales 

1547 Vagrants Act passed - able-bodied tramps can be detained as slaves

1548 Priests in England allowed to marry

1549 Wedding ring finger changed from right to left hand 

1551 Last major outbreak of English Sweating Sickness, not witnessed again post-1578. Holinshed's Chronicles published 1557 described the illness as "so sharp and deadly that the lyke was never hearde of to any manne’s remembrance before that tyme."

1553 Edward VI dies; Lady Jane Grey queen for a few days only

1553 Mary Tudor ('Bloody Mary') comes to the throne

1554 -58 Brief Catholic restoration under Queen Mary Tudor – married priests forced to separate at least 30 miles from their wives

1555 Nostradamus publishes his prophecies 

1556 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer burned at the stake in Oxford 

1558 French take Calais, last English possession in France

1558 Queen Mary Tudor of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth – Protestantism restored in England 

1559 Jan 15: Elizabeth I crowned in Westminster Abbey

1559 Acts of Supremacy passed in Parliament, ending papal jurisdiction over England & Wales; established Church of England 

1559 Tobacco introduced to Europe

1560 Treaty of Berwick between Duc du Chatelherault (as Governor of Scotland) and the English, agreeing to act jointly to expel the French from Scotland 

1562 Earliest English slave-trading expedition, under John Hawkins – between Guinea and the West Indies 

1567 Mary Queen of Scots deposed and replaced by her 1 year old son James VI

1569 Gerardus Mercator produced his world map (Mercator Projection) to aid sailors in their navigation

1572 Tycho's Supernova observed in the constellation Cassiopeia, one of several supernovae visible to the naked eye in historical records

1579 Sir Thomas Gargrave died (b1495) buried Wragby (Yorks, not Lincs as sometimes recorded)

1581 Francis Drake knighted by Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind after circumnavigating the world

1582 Gregorian calendar introduced to replace Julian calendar in some European countries but not UK

1585 Plague affected Barnsley badly, with more than double the deaths of previous years. This outbreak, along with that of 1832 which was combined with cholera, and that of 1840 were the three worst epidemics in Barnsley’s history

1586 Camden Britannia, first topographical survey of England

1587 Feb 8: Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Fotheringay Castle, near Peterborough 

1587 Sir Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cadiz harbour 

1587 Raleigh's second expedition to New World lands in North Carolina – first known child born in the New World of English parents was Virginia Dare

1587 Introduction of potatoes to England 

1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada off Gravelines 

1588 Sir Cotton Gargrave died (b1540)

1593 British statute mile established by law 

1598 Bishop's Transcripts of English and Welsh Parish Registers start

1601 Great English Poor Law Act passed 

1602 Mar 20: Dutch East India Company founded 

1602 Nov 8: Bodleian Library at Oxford University opened to the public

1603 Death of Elizabeth I: union of Scottish and English crowns under King James VI of Scots and I of England (d. 1625) 

 Jul 25: Coronation – James VI of Scotland is crowned first king of Great Britain

1604 Robert Cawdrey A Table Alphabeticall – first English dictionary 

 Nov 1: Shakespeare: Othello first presented 

 James I repealed all of England's sumptuary restrictions

1605 Gunpowder plot at Westminster (Guy Fawkes executed 31 Jan 1606)

1606 Apr 12: Adoption of Union Flag as the flag of Great Britain

1607 Jamestown, Virginia settled – to become the first permanent British colony in North America

1608 First use of telescope by Galileo – he observed the moons of Jupiter two years later in Jan 1610

1611 Authorised (King James) Version of Bible in Britain 

1613 Coinage - copper farthing was produced, as a silver coin would be too small

1616 Ben Jonson becomes first Poet Laureate 

1618 Sir Walter Raleigh beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I 

1620 Dec 21 (Dec 16 old style): The Mayflower reaches America – founds Plymouth, New England

1620 First manufacture of coke - the fuel, not the drink or the drug !!

1621 Chimneys to be made of brick and to be 4.5 feet above the roof 

1625 Death of James VI of Scotland & I of England; succeeded by Charles I

1629 Parliament dissolved by King Charles I – did not meet for another 11 years 

1640 Charles I forced to recall Parliament (the 'Long Parliament') due to Scottish invasion

1641 Charles I's policies cause insurrection in Ulster (50,000 Irish killed) and Civil War in England. The Civil War interrupted the keeping of parish registers

1645 Inquisitions Post Mortem end 

1645 Plague devastates Ackworth

1645 Civil War skirmish at Ackworth

1646 Charles I surrenders to the Scottish Army at Newark; Royalists sign articles of surrender at Oxford

1648 Society of Friends (Quakers) founded by George Fox

1649 King Charles I executed; Commonwealth declared

1649 Christmas banned by Cromwell

1651 -52 The second English Civil War 

1653 Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament; becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland 

 Under the Act of Settlement Cromwell's opponents stripped of land (in Ireland?) 

1653 Isaak Walton published The Compleat Angler

1656 Formation of the Grenadier Guards, the most senior regiment of the Infantry in the British Army

1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell 

1659 Start of national meteorological temperature records in the UK 

1660 Jan 1: Samuel Pepys starts his diary

1660 Restoration of British monarchy under Charles II

1660 Commonwealth registers ended, Parish Registers resumed 

1660 Ten Regicides are executed at Charing Cross or Tyburn: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scrope, John Carew, Thomas Scot and Gregory Clement, who had signed the death warrant; the preacher Hugh Peters; Francis Hacker and Daniel Axter, who commanded the soldiers at the trial and the execution of the king; and John Cook the solicitor who directed the prosecution

1660 Royal Society founded

1660 Scotland adopts Gregorian calendar 

1661 Oliver Cromwell ritually 'executed', having been dead for over 2 years!

1661 Board of Trade founded in London 

1662 Hearth Tax – until 1689 (1690 in Scotland) 

1662 Act of Uniformity – Acceptance of Book of Common Prayer required; about 2,000 vicars and rectors driven from their parishes as nonconformists

1662 Tea introduced to Britain 

1662 Highest number of people (402) in 1 year accused of witchcraft in Scotland

1662 Poor Relief Act gave JPs the power to return any wandering poor to the parish of origin: Settlement Certificates and Removal Orders were introduced following this act, their aim being to establish which parish was responsible for supporting that person in time of need

1663 Earliest Roman Catholic registers 

1664 Nieuw Amsterdam becomes New York as 300 English soldiers take the town from the Dutch under orders from Charles II; the town is renamed after the King's brother James, Duke of York 

1665 Plague kills over 60,000 in London

1665 The London Gazette first published – one of the official journals of record of the UK government, and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK

1666 Great Fire of London

1666 Use of semaphore signalling pioneered

1666 Act of Parliament – burials to be in woollen cloth 

1666 Newton formulated Laws of Gravity

1669 May 31: Last entry in Pepys's diary

1670 Start of Hudson's Bay Company in Canada 

1671 Thomas Blood caught stealing the Crown Jewels

1672 War with Holland (to 1674) – British Army increased to 10,000 men 

1675 John Flamsteed appointed first Astronomer Royal of England; building of Royal Greenwich Observatory started 

1679 Habeas Corpus Act becomes law in England (later repealed from time to time) 

1679 Tories first so named 

1680 London Penny Post began

1680 Dodo becomes extinct in Mauritius through over-hunting

1681 Oil lighting first used in London streets 

1682 Halley observes the comet which bears his name and predicted its return in 1759

1683 Ashmolean Museum opened at Oxford – first museum in Britain 

1683 Wild boar become extinct in Britain

1685 Reign of James II began (to 1689, died 1701)

1685 British Army raised to 20,000 men 

1685 Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes – 320 executed, 800 transported 

1688 Edward Lloyd's Coffee House opens – later became Lloyd's of London 

1688 James II abdicates – William of Orange lands at Torbay on 5 Nov – William III and Mary II, daughter of James II, jointly take the throne 13 Feb 1689 – (only William, however, has regal power) 

1688 British Army raised to 40,000 

1688 Bill of Rights limits the powers of the monarchy over parliament 

1688 Hearth Tax abolished 

1689 Deposed James VII of Scotland & II of England flees to Ireland – defeated at the Battle of the Boyne (1 Jul 1690) 

1689 Bill of Rights passed by Parliament, ending King's divine right to raise taxes or wage war 

1692 The massacre of Glencoe – Clan Campbell sides with King William and murders members of Clan McDonald

1693 -1700 Climate: Oat harvest failed repeatedly in Scotland – widespread starvation

1694 National Debt came into effect in England 

1694 Bank of England founded

1694 Mary II's death leaves William III as sole ruler

1695 Bank of Scotland founded 

1695 Act of Parliament imposes a fine on all who fail to inform the parish minister of the birth of a child

1695 Window Tax replaced Hearth Tax

1696 Act of Parliament establishes Workhouses 

1698 Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London destroyed by fire

1700 Population in England and Scotland approx 7.5 million

1701 After being convicted of piracy and murder, Captain William Kidd was hanged in London 

1702 Reign of Queen Anne begins 

1703 Climate: Most violent storms of the millennium cause vast damage across southern England – about a third of Britain's merchant fleet lost

1706 First evening newspaper The Evening Post issued in London

1707 Union with Scotland – Scots agree to send 16 peers and 45 MPs to English Parliament in return for full trading privileges – Scottish Parliament meets for the last time in March. Kingdom of Great Britain established.

1708 Earliest Artillery Muster Rolls 

1709 Alexander Selkirk rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

1709 First Copyright Act passed 

1709 Bad harvests throughout Europe – bread riots in Britain

1712 Last trial for witchcraft in England (Jane Wenham). Law against witchcraft only repealed in 1951.

1714 Queen Anne dies; George I of Hanover becomes King (to 1727)

1714 Longitude Act: prize of £20,000 offered to the inventor of a workable method of determining a ship's longitude

1715 Riot Act passed 

1716 Climate: River Thames frozen so solid that a spring tide lifted the ice bodily 13ft without interrupting the Frost Fair

1720 South Sea Bubble stock-market crash

1723 Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate 

1723 The Waltham Black Acts add 50 capital offences to the penal code – people could be sentenced to death for theft and poaching – repealed in 1827

1723 The Workhouse Act – to get relief, a poor person has to enter Workhouse 

1727 George I dies; George II of Hanover becomes King 

1730 Irish famine 

1731 Invention of sextant by John Hadley 

1732 Covent Garden Opera House opens

1733 John Kay invents the flying shuttle, revolutionised the weaving industry

1739 Dick Turpin, highwayman, hanged at York

1742 England goes to war with Spain – incited by William Pitt the Elder (Earl of Chatham) for the sake of trade 

1743 Battle of Dettingen – last time a British sovereign (George II) led troops in battle 

1744 National Anthem God Save the King makes its first appearance

1745 Jacobite rebellion in Scotland; Bonnie Prince Charlie (The Young Pretender) lands in the western Highlands – raises support among Episcopalian and Catholic clans – The Pretender's army invades Perth, Edinburgh, and England as far as Derby 

1746 Battle of Culloden – last battle fought in Britain – 5,000 Highlanders routed by the Duke of Cumberland and 9,000 Loyalist Scots – Young Pretender Charles flees to Continent, ending Jacobite hopes forever – the wearing of the kilt prohibited 

 1747 

1747 Lord Lovat beheaded on Tower Hill aged 80, the last person to be executed in this manner

1750 Series of earthquakes in London and the Home Counties cause panic with predictions of an apocalypse 

1750 Original Westminster Bridge opened (replaced in 1862 due to subsidence) 

1752 Jan 1: Beginning of the year 1752 [Scotland had adopted January as the start of the year in 1600, and some other countries in Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar as early as 1582

1752 Julian Calendar dropped and Gregorian Calendar adopted in England and Scotland

1755 Publication of Dictionary of the English Language by Dr Samuel Johnson 

1755 Earthquake and tsunami destroy Lisbon – up to 90,000 dead

1756 The Seven Years War with France begins 

1757 Militia Act – county regiments established during Seven Years War comprised of volunteers & conscripts, the latter chosen by ballot (though they could find a substitute or pay a princely £10 instead)

1759 British Museum opens to the public in London 

1759 First predicted return of Halley's comet 

1759 Guinness starts being brewed

1760 George II dies; George III of Hanover, his grandson, becomes King 

1762 Cigars introduced into Britain from Cuba 

1764 Lloyd's Register of shipping first prepared 

1764 Practice of numbering houses introduced to London

1764 James Hargeaves invents the Spinning Jenny

1764 Mozart produces his first symphony at age eight

1766 Christie's auction house founded in London by James Christie

1767 First iron railroads built for mines by John Wilkinson 

1767 Newcomen's steam pumping engine perfected by James Watt 

1768 The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published

1769 Capt James Cook maps the coast of New Zealand 

1770 Capt James Cook lands in Australia (Botany Bay) and formally claims Australia for Britain

1770 Clyde Trust created to convert the River Clyde, then an insignificant river, into a major thoroughfare for maritime communications 

1774 Capt James Cook arrives on Easter Island 

1776 Jul 4: American Declaration of Independence 

1779 Capt James Cook killed on Hawaii

1779 Crompton's mule invented (textile production) 

1779 Marc Isambard Brunel opens the first steamdriven sawmill at Chatham Dockyard in Kent 

1779 First iron bridge built, over the Severn by John Wilkinson 

1781 Lord Cornwallis's army surrenders to George Washington, ending the American War of Independence 

1782 James Watt patents his steam engine 

1783 Climate: July was the hottest month on record until 1983; Gilbert White in his 'Natural History of Selborne' says: "The summer of 1783 was an amazing and portenteous one, and full of horrible phenomena; for, besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog that prevailed for many weeks in this island and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance unlike anything known within the memory of man".

1783 -84 Iceland’s 16 mile-long fissure volcano, Lakagígar (more familiarly Laki), erupted for 8 months releasing an estimated 120 million tons of sulphur dioxide, causing deaths throughout Europe (est. 23,000 in Britain) and disrupting the climate throughout much of the northern hemisphere for several years.

1783 Last public execution at Tyburn in London (John Austin, a highwayman)

1783 First untethered manned hot-air balloon flight in Paris

1804 Smallpox in Ackworth

1784 First mail coaches in England

1785 Blanchard & Jeffries make first balloon crossing of the English Channel, taking about 2½ hours to travel from England to France

1787 MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) established at Thomas Lord's ground in London

1788 First convicts (and free settlers) arrive in New South Wales, Australia

1788 Law passed requiring that chimney sweeps be a minimum of 8 years old (not enforced) 

1788 Dolben Act regulates the slave trade, stipulating more humane conditions on slave ships 

1788 King George III's mental illness occasions the Regency Crisis

1789 Mutiny on HMS Bounty – Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew ends up on Pitcairn Island

1789 Jul 14: The French Revolution begins – storming of the Bastille 

1791 John Bell, printer, abandons the "long s" (the "s" that looks like an "f") 

1791 Establishment of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain 

1791 First publication of The Observer – world's oldest Sunday newspaper 

1793 Britain declares war on France (1793-1802) 

1793 £5 notes first issued by the Bank of England 

1795 Consumption of lime juice made compulsory in Royal Navy 

1795 France adopts the metric system 

1796 Dr Edward Jenner gave first vaccination for smallpox in England

1797 French invade Fishguard, Wales; last time UK invaded; all captured 2 days later 

1797 England in Crisis, Bank of England suspends cash payments 

1797 First £1 (and £2) notes issued by Bank of England 

1798 The Irish Rebellion; 100,000 peasants revolt; approximately 25,000 die; Irish Parliament abolished 

1799 Pitt brings in 10% income tax, as a wartime financial measure 

1799 The Rosetta Stone, discovered in Egypt, made possible the deciphering of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics 

1799 Perfect mammoth discovered preserved in ice in Siberia 

1800 Parliamentary union of Great Britain and Ireland 

1800 Malta became a British Dominion

1800 Electric light first produced by Sir Humphrey Davy 

1800 Royal College of Surgeons founded 

1800 Herschel discovers infra-red light 

1800 Volta makes first electrical battery 

1800 British trade accounts for about 27% of world trade 

1800 Treaty of Waitangi – Maori chiefs in New Zealand recognise British sovereignty in return for tribes being guaranteed possession of their lands