Bleriot flies across the Channel (36 minutes, Calais to Dover)
Selfridges department store opens in London
Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole
Beveridge Report prompts creation of labour Exchanges
Peary reaches the north pole
First commercial manufacture of Bakelite - start of the plastic age
Old Age Pensions Act came into force
First 'Model T' Ford made
SOS became effective as an international signal of distress
Coal Mines Regulation Act in Britain limits men to an eight hour day
Separate courts for juveniles established in Britain
Lord Baden-Powell starts the Boy Scout movement
The Cullinan Diamond presented to Edward VII on his birthday
Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island
Leo Hendrik Baekeland patents Bakelite, the first plastic invented that held its shape after being heated
New Zealand becomes a Dominion
Imperial College, London, is established
First airship flies over London
Lumiere develops a process for colour photography
Launching of Cunard's RMS Mauretania on the Tyne
Vauxhall Bridge opened in London
Rolls-Royce Ltd registered
Launching of HMS Dreadnought, first turbine-driven battleship
Introduction of free school meals for poor children
Einstein publishes Special Theory of Relativity
The title 'Prime Minister' noted in a royal warrant for the first time - placed the Prime Minister in order of precedence in Britain immediately after the Archbishop of York
Aliens Act in Britain: Home Office controls immigration
Germany lays down the first Dreadnought battleship
America takes over construction of the Panama Canal from the French (completed 1914)
France and UK sign the Entente Cordiale
Leeds University established
First flight of Wilbur & Orville Wright
Workers' Education Association (WEA) formed in Britain
Women's Social and Political Union formed in Britain by Emmeline Pankhurst
Henry Ford sets up his motor company
Coronation of Edward VII
Treaty of Vereeniging ends Second Boer War
Empire Day (later Commonwealth Day) first celebrated
Balfour's Education Act provides for secondary education
Cremation Act - cremation can only take place at officially recognised establishments, and with two death certificates issued
Marie Curie discovers radioactivity
First successful radio transmission across the Atlantic, by Marconi - Morse code from Cornwall to Newfoundland
Britain's first submarine launched
Denunciation of use of concentration camps by British in Boer War
Queen Victoria's funeral - interred beside Prince Albert in the Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park
Queen Victoria dies - Edward VII king
Commonwealth of Australia founded
Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner
Labour Party formed
Davis Cup tennis competition established
School leaving age in Britain raised to 14 years
Central Line opens in London: underground is electrified
Escalator shown at Paris exhibition
Start of Second Boer War
Aspirin first marketed by Bayer
The first solo circumnavigation of the globe completed at Rhode island by Joshua Slocum in Spray (started from Boston, Mass on Apr 24, 1895)
USS Holland launched, the first practical submarine
First photograph using artificial light
Zeppelin builds airship
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company founded
Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector
Guglielmo Marconi receives a British patent (later disputed) for the radio
First modern Olympic Games held in Athens
X-rays discovered
First people in Britain to be charged with motor offences - John Henry Knight and James Pullinger of Farnham, Surrey
First recorded motor journey of any length (56 miles) in Britain
Oscar Wilde sent to prison
Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted
The National Trust founded in England
Sir Henry Wood starts Promenade Concerts in London
Death duties first introduced in Britain
Tower Bridge first opens
Blackpool Tower opens
Picture postcard introduced in Britain
Manchester Ship Canal opens
Henry Ford's first car
Zip fastener invented
Alfred Lord Tennyson dies, aged 83, at his house Aldworth, near Haslemere
Electric oven invented
Shop Hours Act - limit 74 hours per week for under-18's
Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera
Fictional date when Sherlock Holmes throws Moriarty over Reichenbach Falls, then disappears for 3 years! (published in 1893)
First telephone link between London & Paris
Primary education made free and compulsory
City & South London Railway opens - London's first deep-level tube railway and first major railway in the world to use electric traction
Forth railway bridge opens - took six years to build
Celluloid film produced
Dock Strike - docker's won their 'Docker's Tanner' 6 old pennies