The Rise of the Great PowersBritish History Timeline

1. Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution was a nonviolent coup d'état staged by the English bourgeoisie and the new nobility in 1688 to overthrow the rule of James II and prevent the restoration of the Catholic Church.

The revolution was so bloodless that historians have called it the "Glorious Revolution," and in 1689 the English Parliament passed a Bill of Rights that limited the power of the crown.

This laid the foundation for a constitutional government in which the king ruled, and the power of the state was gradually transferred from the monarch to Parliament. The constitutional monarchy originated in the Glorious Revolution.

2. The Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War took place from 1754 to 1763, and the main conflict was centered in 1756-1763. All the major European powers were involved in the war, and its effects covered Europe, North and Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines.

The war was driven by rivalries between European powers. Britain competed with France and Spain for trade and colonies. Meanwhile Prussia, a rising power, and Austria were simultaneously vying for hegemony inside and outside the system of the Holy Roman Empire.

Shortly after the War of the Austrian Succession, the European powers engaged in an "exchange of partners" known as the Diplomatic Revolution. Prussia formed an alliance with Britain, while France and Austria, traditional rivals of each other, entered into an alliance.

The Anglo-Prussian alliance was later joined by the smaller German states (especially Hanover) and Portugal, while the Franco-Austrian alliance included Sweden, Saxony, and later Spain.

Russia was initially allied with Austria. But it changed its position after the accession of Tsar Peter III in 1762, and together with Sweden concluded a separate contract with Prussia.

The Treaty of Paris 1763 between France, Spain and Britain, and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony, Austria and Prussia*** marked the end of the war.

The war was known in Europe for its sieges, arson of towns and cities, and field battles that caused heavy losses. The total **** of the war resulted in about 900,000 to 1,400,000 deaths. (The names of the countries above are the most commonly used ones not the full title of their monarchs)

3. Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution in Britain began in the 1860s with the technological innovation of the cotton textile industry and the improvement and widespread use of the Watt steam engine as the pivot to the realization of the mechanization of machine manufacturing in the 1830s and 1840s as a sign of the basic completion of the revolution.

In the 17th century, the establishment of the British bourgeois regime promoted the further development of capitalism, the British colonial expansion accumulated a large amount of capital for the development of capitalism, and the enclosure movement provided a large number of laborers necessary for the production of capitalism.

In the middle of the 18th century, Britain became the largest capitalist colonial power in the world, and the expansion of domestic and foreign markets put forward the demand for technological reforms in the workshop handicraft industry, so the Industrial Revolution, which aimed at technological innovations, first took place in Britain.

The main manifestation of the industrial revolution in Britain was the replacement of handicrafts by large-scale machine industry, and the replacement of handmade workshops by machine factories. The revolution did not happen by chance, but was the inevitable result of the development of the British society, politics, economy, production technology and scientific research.

It made the British social structure and relations of production has undergone significant changes, the rapid increase in productivity, this revolution from the beginning to the completion of the roughly experienced a hundred years of time, the scope of influence not only extends to Western Europe and North America, and promote the France, the United States, Germany and other countries of the technological innovation.

But it also extended to Eastern Europe and Asia, and the climax of the Industrial Revolution also occurred in Russia and Japan, which marked the arrival of a new high tide of world integration.

4. Opium War

The Opium War, or the First Opium War, often called the First Sino-British War or the "War of Commerce" in the United Kingdom, was a war of aggression waged by the United Kingdom against China from 1840 to 1842, and was also the beginning of modern Chinese history.

In 1840 (the twentieth year of the Daoguang era), the British government decided to send an expeditionary force to invade China under the pretext of Lin Zexu's Humen Smokeout.

In June 1840, 47 British ships and 4,000 soldiers, led by Rear Admiral Anthony Blaxland Stransham and Charles Elliott, the Commercial Superintendent of China, arrived one after another at the mouth of the Pearl River in Guangdong Province, blockading the sea port, and the Opium War began.

The Opium Wars ended with China's defeat and the payment of compensation. China and Britain signed the Treaty of Nanjing, the first unequal treaty in Chinese history.

The Qing customs and tax rates were controlled by Britain, and the sovereignty of the tariffs was undermined. With a low tax rate of 5 percent on imports, a large amount of foreign goods were dumped into China, making it impossible to guarantee the development of China's domestic industry and commerce.

Opium continued to sell, silver outflow, the price of silver rose, the situation of silver is expensive and money is cheap more serious. Britain imported goods into China increased greatly, the total value of British exports to China in 1837 was more than 900,000 pounds, to 1845 has reached 2,394,000 pounds. With foreign investors investing and building factories in China, it stimulated the desire of a group of domestic bureaucrats, landowners and businessmen to start investing in modern industry.

5. Second Boer War

The Second Boer War (English: Second Boer War), refers to the October 11, 1899 - May 31, 1902 British and Dutch immigrants descended from the Boers established the Transvaal **** and the State of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State to fight over the territory and resources of South Africa, also known as the South African War.

The ultimatum of the President of the Transvaal**** and State, Paul Kriegel, to withdraw British troops from the Transvaal border was rejected by the British government.

In the fall of 1899, British troops began to mass on the Transvaal-Orange border, and to prevent a British invasion, the Boers declared war on Britain on October 11, 1899, and the Boer militia thus took the initiative in attacking the British forces in southern Africa.

For the conquest of only hundreds of thousands of people of the Boers, the war lasted more than three years, Britain has invested more than 400,000 people, *** killed in action more than 22,000 people. Eventually Britain signed a peace treaty with the Boers under the pressure of the huge losses and international public opinion brought about by the war, and the war came to an end. This war contributed to the formation of the Union of South Africa and the impact of guerrilla warfare in the military field.

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