A Cultural & Political Timeline

1714 Death of Queen Anne of England; succeeded by King George 1 of Hanover

1719 Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

1726 Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift

1727 Death of George 1: accession of George II

1740 Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson, considered the first modern English novel.

1742 George Frederic Handel's Messiah first performed.

1749 The Governess, first English novel written expressly for children, by Sarah Fielding.

1756 Seven Years War, or French and Indian War begins.

1759 Candide, by Voltaire

1760 Death of George II; accession of George III

1762 Emile, ou de l'Education, by Jean Jacques Rousseau

1768 Founding of British Academy

1775 First shots of the American Revolution

1776 Declaration of Independence

1783 American Revolution ends; independence of the U.S. is recognized with Treaty of Versailles.

1788 U.S. Constitution ratified by original 13 states.

1789 French Revolution begins; George Washington inaugurated as first President of the U.S.; Songs of Innocence, by William Blake.

1791 The Bill of Rights amended to the U.S. Constitution.

1798 Lyrical Ballands, by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

1799 Napoloeon Bonaparte seizes power in France.

1801 Thomas Jefferson elected third president of the U.S.

1812 U.S. - British War of 1812 begins; Grimm's Fairy Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, in Germany.

1813 Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen; The Swiss Family Robinson, by J.R. Wyss.

1815 Emma, by Jane Austen.

1818 Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley.

1819 Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving; Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightengale, by John Keats.

1820 Death of George III; accession of George IV.

1826 The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper.

1830 Death of George IV; accession of William IV.

1831 Poems, by Edgar Allan Poe.

1837 Death of William IV; accession of Queen Victoria.

1838 Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.

1839 Nicholas Nickelby, by Charles Dickens.