1837 Victoria succeeds her uncle, William IV

1838 Publication of People�s Charter. Start of Chartism.

1839 First Afghan War. British Forces capture the fortress of Ghazi in Afghanistan.

1839 - 42 First Opium War. Britain gains Hong Kong.

1840 Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1840 The Penny Post is introduced. First postage stamp is the Penny Black.

1840 First colonist settlement in New Zealand

1841 Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister

1842 End of First Opium War. Britain gains Hong Kong

1843 Launch of SS Great Britain the worlds first all metal ship.

1844 Railway building mania starts. 5,000 miles of track are built in Britain by 1846

1845 - 1849 Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people. Many emigrate to America.

1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws

1848 Major Chartist demonstration in London.

1848 Pre-Raphaelite movement begins

1849 Harrods store in London is opened

1851 Great Exhibition takes place in Hyde Park. Its success is largely due to Prince Albert.

1852 Death of the Duke of Wellington

1853 Vaccination against smallpox made compulsory.

1853 Victoria uses chloroform during the birth of Prince Leopold.

1854 -1856 Crimean War fought by Britain and France against Russia.

1854 Charge of the Light Brigade

1854 10,000 die of cholera from contaminated water in London.

1856 The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery.

1856 David Livingstone discovers the Victoria Falls

1857 -1858 Indian Mutiny against British rule.

1858 Isambard Kingdom Brunel launches The Great Eastern, the largest ship in the world and the first with a double iron hull.

1858 First trans-Atlantic telegraph service

1859 Publication of Charles Darwin�s The Origin of the Species.

1861 Prince Albert dies of typhoid

1861 - 65 Civil War in America. Southern states unsuccessfully seek to involve Britain which has sufficient cotton from Egypt and India, but needs the Union North's grain.

1863 The world's first underground railway is opened in London

1863 Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Alexandra of Denmark

1863 The Salvation Army is founded.

1863 The Football Association is founded.

1865 Slavery is ended in America with Northern Union victory in the American Civil War

1867 The Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise vote to two million.

1867 Canada becomes the first independent dominion in the Empire.

1867 Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital

1868 Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time.

1869 The Irish Church is disestablished.

1870 First Education Act. Primary education becomes compulsory.

1870 Death of Charles Dickens

1871 Trade Unions are legalized

1872 Secret voting is introduced for elections.

1872 Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone who had been missing in Africa.

1874 Disraeli becomes Prime Minister for the second time.

1875 Suez Canal shares purchased for Britain.

1875 Thomas Moy demonstrates his Aerial Steamer the worlds first flying machine at Crystal Palace, London

1876 Victoria becomes Empress of India.

1876 Scots Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the telephone

1878 Second Afghan War. British defend the Kyber Pass.

1878 William Booths Christian movement adopts the name The Salvation Army

1879 Tay Bridge disaster

1879 Zulu war, British troops massacred at Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift

1880 Gladstone succeeds Disraeli as Prime Minister

1880 - 1881 First conflict with Boers in South Africa

1883 British occupy Egypt

1884 Third Reform Act all adult males given the vote.

1884 Greenwich Meridian and Mean Time adopted

1886 First Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass House of Commons. Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister.

1887 Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee. She has ruled for 50 years.

1887 Independent Labour Party is founded.

1891 Free schooling is introduced. 11 years later school attendance becomes compulsory for all children.

1893 Second Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass the House of Lords.

1897 Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee.

1897 Marconi demonstrates wireless transmission across the Bristol Channel

1899 -1902 Boer War in South Africa. Siege of Mafeking

1900 Labour party founded