EUROPEAN UNION WORLD

Timeline of European History

1643–1715 Reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King) in France 1688 Glorious Revolution in England replaces absolute monarchy with constitutional monarchy

1690 - John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government

1711 - Newcomen invents early version of steam engine

1740 -1789 Enlightenment at its peak

1762 - 1796 Catherine II (the Great) rules in Russia

1769 - James Watt invents the modern steam engine

1774-1793 Reign of Louis XVI in France

1776 - American Declaration of Independence

1776 - Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations

1776-1783 American War of Independence

1787- U.S. Constitution written

1788 - Economic problems lead Louis XVI to convoke Estates General

1789 - French Revolution begins; fall of the Bastille; Declaration of the Rights of Man

1792 - First French republic established

1793 - Louis XVI beheaded

1793-1794 - The Terror in France

1795–1799 - The Directory in France

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power in France

1804 - Napoleon crowns himself Napoleon I, emperor of France

1812 - Napoleon invades Russia

1814-1830 - Restoration; Bourbon monarchy in France

1815 Wellington defeats Napoleon at Waterloo

1815 - Congress of Vienna

1825- First railroad runs in Britain

1825 - Decembrist revolt in Russia

1830 - Revolution in France deposes Charles X and establishes July Monarchy under Louis Philippe, who rules until 1848

1830 - Revolutions in Belgium, Poland, and elsewhere

1830 - Mazzini founds Young Italy movement

1832 - First reform bill in Britain expands voting rights

1833 - Slavery abolished in Britain

1837-1901 - Reign of Queen Victoria in Britain

1838 - People’s Charter in England demands universal suffrage; Chartist movement

1848 - Peoples’ Spring revolutions in France, Austria, Prussia, Hungary, and Italy; all repressed by 1849

1848 - Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto

1848-1916 - Reign of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria

1854-1856 -The Crimean War

1855-1881 - Reign of Alexander II (the Tsar Liberator) in Russia

1859 - Darwin’s Origin of Species

1859 - Cavour provokes war with Austria to win territory for Italy

1859-1870 -Unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour

1861 - Emancipation of serfs in Russia by Tsar Alexander II

1864-1871 - Bismarck’s wars of German unification against Denmark, Austria, and France

1867 - Dual monarchy established in Austria-Hungary

1869 - Suez Canal constructed

1870s - Populist and nihilist movements in Russia

1870-1871 - Franco-Prussian War

1870-1940 - Third Republic in France

1871–1918 - The German Empire

1878 - Serbia gains independence from the Ottoman Empire

1880s - Socialist parties founded in Europe

1883–1893 -French colonization of Indochina

1885 - Berlin Conference on Africa

1885–1900 - Scramble for Africa; intensive colonization by Europeans

1888-1918 - Reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany

1894-1917 - Reign of Tsar Nicholas II in Russia

1898 - Spanish-American War; United States acquires Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines as colonies

1898 - Russian Social Democratic Labor Party formed; soon splits into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions

1900 - Freud publishes Interpretation of Dreams

1904-1905 - Russo-Japanese War

1905 - Bloody Sunday and revolution in Russia

1905 - Einstein publishes theory of relativity

1914 - Assassination of Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo

1914- 1918 World War I

1917 - United States enters war

1917 - Russian revolution overthrows tsar and brings Bolsheviks (communists) to power

1918 - Germany surrenders, ending World War I

1918 - Fall of German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires

1918 - Limited suffrage for women in Britain

1919 - Treaty of Versailles

1919-1933 - Weimar Republic in Germany

1922- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) established

1922 Mussolini seizes power in Italy

1922–1943 Fascist rule in Italy under Mussolini

1924 - Vladimir Lenin dies; soon succeeded as Soviet party leader by Joseph Stalin (rules until 1953)

1928 - Stalin launches first five-year plan of planned industrialization in USSR

1928 - Full suffrage for women in Britain

1929 - U.S. stock market crashes, leading to Great Depression of 1930s

1933 - Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany

1933-1945 - Nazi rule in Germany under Hitler

1936 - John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

1936-1938 - Stalin’s Great Purge in Soviet Union

1936-1939 - Spanish Civil War

1937- Rome–Berlin–Tokyo axis; Hitler signs treaties with Italy and Japan

1938 - Munich Conference allows Hitler’s takeover of Sudetenland

1938 - Germany annexes Austria

1939 – Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact

1939- Germany invades Poland, leading to British declaration of war

1939-1945 - World War II

1940 - Germans invade Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France

1940 - Churchill becomes British prime minister; Battle of Britain

1941- Germans invade Soviet Union1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; United States enters war

1942-1943 - Battle of Stalingrad; Russians turn tide against Germans

1943 - Allies invade Italy; fall of Mussolini

1944 - Allied invasion of France at Normandy

1945 - Yalta and Potsdam conferences of Allied leaders

1945 - Hitler commits suicide; Germany surrenders

1945 - United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders

1945 - United Nations established with fifty-one members

1945 -1948 Communist regimes established by Soviet Union in Eastern Europe

1947- Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan commit United States to Europe

1948-1949 - Berlin blockade and airlift

1949 - German Federal Republic (West Germany) and German Democratic Republic (East Germany) established

1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) founded

1949 - Communists win power in China under Mao Zedong

1950-1953- Korean War

1951- European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) formed

1953 - Death of Stalin in USSR

1954 - France pulls out of Indochina; Vietnam partitioned into North and South Vietnam

1955 - West Germany joins NATO; Warsaw Pact formed

1956 - Uprisings in Poland and Hungary crushed by Soviet Union

1957 - Soviet Union launches first orbiting satellite, Sputnik

1957 - Gold Coast (Ghana) gains independence from Britain

1957 - Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community (EEC)

1958 - Fifth French republic established with Charles de Gaulle as president

1961 - Berlin Wall erected

1961-1975 - U.S. involvement in Vietnam War

1962 - U.S.- Soviet Cuban missile crisis

1964-1982 - Brezhnev in power in Soviet Union

1967 - ECSC, EEC, and Euratom merge into European Community (EC)

1968 - Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia crushed by Soviet Union

1970s - East–West détente; improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations, arms-control agreements

1973 - Britain, Denmark, and Ireland join EC, which then has nine members

1974 - Revolution in Portugal ends dictatorship

1975 - Death of Franco in Spain; constitutional monarchy established

1975 - End of last European (Portuguese) empire in Africa

1975 - Helsinki Conference on European Security and Cooperation

1978 - Polish cardinal Wojtyła named Pope John Paul II

1979 - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; end of détente

1980-1981 - Solidarity movement in Poland challenges communist rule

1982 Soviet leader Brezhnev dies

1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev chosen leader of Soviet Communist Party; begins perestroika

1989 - Hungary opens border to Austria; Solidarity wins elections in Poland; fall of Berlin Wall; fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe

1990 - Free elections in most of European post communist countries

1990 - Germany reunified

1991 - Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia declare independence from Yugoslavia

1991 - USSR dissolved; Warsaw Pact dissolved

1992-1995 - Civil war in Bosnia finally ended with Dayton Accords of 1995

1993 - Czechoslovakia divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia

1993 - European Union (EU) born

2002- Euro introduced as currency of EU

2006 - Montenegro and Serbia declare independence, ending the state of Yugoslavia

2004-2007 EU membership expanded to twenty-seven with addition of twelve new members, including ten former communist countries