Died (Child, William Frederick)

Child, William Frederick (1908 - 1909)

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