Timeline

1837						Queen Victoria comes to the throne.
1839						First Opium War in China.
1840						Marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert; Penny post starts; Annexation of New Zealand.
1842						Opening of the Great Western railway.
1840s						Railway mania hits Britain.
1842						Attempted assassination of Queen Victoria.
1845						Potato famine hits Ireland.
1846						Corn Laws are abolished.
1848						Revolutions break out across Europe.
1850						The first public libraries open.
1851						Great exhibition opens in Crystal Palace.
1852						Britain annexes Burma.
1854-1856						The Crimean War.
1855						Livingstone discovers and names the Victoria Falls on Africa's Zambezi River.
1856						Victoria Cross is created to reward bravery in battle.
1857						The Indian Mutiny happens; the Second Opium War in China occurs.
1858						The London Omnibus company is founded.
1859						Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.
1860						The navy launches its iron warships.
1861						Prince Albert dies from typhoid; Civil War begins in America.
1867						Diamonds are discovered in South Africa; The second Reform Act is passed.
1869					The Suez Canal is opened in Egypt.
1871					Henry Morton Stanley finds Livingstone in Africa.
1873					Asante war occurs on the Gold Coast.
1876					Christians are massacred in Turkish Bulgaria; Disraeli becomes Earl of Beaconsfield; First telephone call made by Alexander Graham Bell.
1877					Queen Victoria made Empress of India; The first Wimbledon tennis championships are played.
1879					The Zulu War occurs in Africa, with British army defeated and humiliated at Isandhlwana); Britain invades Afghanistan.
1880					The first Boer War.
1881					Boers defeat British in Boer War; Wales bans drinking on Sunday; Parnell is sent to prison in Ireland.
1884-1885					Berlin Conference ends the scramble for Africa; Third Reform Act passed by Parliament.
1885					The Fall of Khartoum; The motor car is invented; The Indian National Congress is started in Bombay to help Indians play a larger role in the government of their country, which is under British rule.
1886					Gold is discovered in South Africa's Transvaal.
1888					Match girls' strike; Jack the Ripper terrorizes London.
1890					Cecil Rhodes becomes prime minister of Cape Colony.
1892					Kier Hardie becomes first Labor Party MP.
1894					Rudyard Kipling writes The Jungle Book.
1896					The British invade Sudan; Kaiser sends a telegram to Rhodes regarding the Jameson Raid; Invention of X-ray photographs.
1897					Queen Victoria's Jubliee.
1898					The Boxer Rebellion happens in China.
1899					The Boer War.
1900					Sigmund Freud publishes the Interpretation of Dreams.
1901					Queen Victoria dies.