London adopts a 'Green Belt' scheme
Land speed record of 301.13 mph by Malcolm Campbell
First time a steam locomotive travels at 100 mph ('Flying Scotsman')
RMS Queen Mary launched
King George V opens Mersey Tunnel
Hitler becomes Fuehrer of Germany
First known photos of the 'Loch Ness Monster' taken
ICI scientists discover polythene
Only 6 pennies minted in Britain this year
Iraq gains independence from Britain
'The Times' introduces 'Times New Roman' typeface
Amelia Earhart first solo nonstop flight across Atlantic by a female pilot
Great Hunger March of unemployed to London
Moseley founds British Union of Fascists
Cockroft and Walton accelerate particles to disintegrate an atomic nucleus
Sir Thomas Beecham established the London Philharmonic Orchestra
National Government formed to deal with economic crisis - Britain comes off gold standard
Census: Population - England and Wales; 40 Million; Scotland: 4.8 Million; N Ireland: 1.24 Million (Unfortunately, the census was destroyed by fire in WW2)
Highway Code first issued
Statute of Westminster: British Dominions become independent sovereign states
Collapse of the German banking system; 3,000 banks there close
R101 airship disaster - British abandons airship construction
Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas
3M begins marketing Scotch Tape
Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany
First Nazis elected to the German Reichstag
Youth Hostel Association (YHA) founded in Britain
Abolition of Poor Law system in Britain
Minimum age for a marriage in Britain (which had been 14 for a boy and 12 for a girl) now 16 for both sexes, with parental consent (or a licence) needed for anyone under 21
BBC begins experimental TV transmissions
Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers penicillin (results published 1929)
Madame Tussauds opens in London
Women over 21 get vote in Britain - same qualification for both sexes
The Menin Gate war memorial unveiled at Ypres
Last Ford Model T rolls off assembly line
Lindbergh makes solo flight across the Atlantic, in 33? hours
First cooked meals on a scheduled flight introduced by Imperial Airways from London to Paris
First football broadcast by BBC (Arsenal v Sheffield United at Highbury)
First transatlantic telephone call - New York City to London
Release of the first 'talkie' film (The Jazz Singer)
Death of Harry Houdini
General Strike begins. Lasts until May 12 (mine workers for 6 months more)
Princess Elizabeth born
First public demonstration of television (TV) by John Logie Baird
Adoption of children is legalised in Britain
Kodak produces 16mm movie film
Walt Disney arrives in Hollywood
Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf
Britain returns to gold standard
British Imperial Airways begins operations (formed by merger of four British airline companies - became BOAC in 1940)
Hourly Greenwich Time Signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast by the BBC
First Labour government in Britain, headed by Ramsay MacDonald
First publication of Radio Times
First Wembley cup final (West Ham 0, Bolton 2) - 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles ' popular song of the time became the West Ham anthem
Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun
Roads in Great Britain classified with A and B numbers
Hubble shows there are galaxies beyond the Milky Way
First American broadcasts heard in Britain
The majority of the railway companies in Great Britain grouped into four main companies, the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, LMSR - lasted until nationalisation in 1948
BBC established as a monopoly, and begins transmissions in November (2LO in London on 14 Nov; 5IT in Birmingham and 2ZY in Manchester on 15 Nov)
Royal Ulster Constabulary founded
Law of Property Act - the manorial system effectively ended
Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in London, leading to the formation of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland
Census: Population - England and Wales: 37.9 Million; Scotland: 4.9 Million; N Ireland: 1.25 Million
Railway Act in Britain amalgamates companies - only four remained
Insulin discovery announced
First birth control clinic
First roadside petrol filling station in UK - opened by the Automobile Association at Aldermaston on the Bath Road
Regular cross-channel air service starts
Marconi opens a radio broadcasting station in Britain
Thompson patents his machine gun (Tommy gun)
Treaty of Versailles signed
Alcock and Brown complete first nonstop flight across the Atlantic
Britain adopts a 48-hour working week
Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting the atom
First woman elected to House of Commons, Countess Markiewicz as a Sinn Fein member refused to take her seat
Armistice signed
Arab forces under Lawrence of Arabia capture Damascus
Second Battle of the Marne: last major German offensive in WW1 (Jul-Aug)
Start of world-wide 'flu pandemic
Bentley Motors founded
Vote for women over 30, men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons)
War of Independence in Ireland
British forces capture Jerusalem
Halifax (Nova Scotia) Explosion, one of the world's largest artificial non-nuclear explosions to date: a ship loaded with wartime explosives blew up after a collision, obliterating buildings and structures within two square kilometres of the explosion
'October' Revolution in Russia - Bolsheviks overthrow provisional government; Lenin becomes Chief Commissar
Battle of Passchendaele - little gained by either side (Jul-Nov)
George V changes surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (Royal proclamation on 17 July)
USA declares war on Germany
Lenin returns to Russia after exile
February revolution in Russia; Tsar Nicholas abdicates
Battle of Cambrai - first use of massed tanks, but effect more psychological than actual
Ministry of Labour is established in Britain
Lloyd-George becomes British Prime Minister of the coalition government
First use of tanks in battle, but of limited effect (Battle of the Somme 1 July to 18 Nov: over 1 million casualties)
Sir Roger Casement hanged at Pentonville Prison for treason
Sinking of HMS Hampshire and death of Kitchener
Battle of Jutland - only major naval battle between the British and German fleets
First use of Daylight Saving Time in UK
Easter Rising in Ireland - after the leaders are executed, public opinion backs independence
Battle of Verdun - appalling losses on both sides, stalemate continues
Compulsory military service introduced in Britain
First meeting of a British WI (Women's Institute) took place in Llanfairpwll (aka Llanfair PG), Anglesey
RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off coast of Ireland - 1,198 died
Gallipoli campaign starts (declared ANZAC Day in 1916)
Second Battle of Ypres - poison gas used for first time
Submarine blockade of Britain starts
First Zeppelin air raid on England, over East Anglia - four killed
Junkers construct first fighter aeroplane
First automatic telephone exchange in Britain
German battleships bombard Hartlepool and Scarborough
First policewoman goes on duty in Britain
Battle of Ypres - beginning of trench warfare on western front
Panama Canal opened, the Canal cement boat 'Ancon' making the first official transit (plans for a grand opening were cancelled due to the start of WW1)
British cableship Telconia cut through all five of Germany's undersea telegraph links to the outside world
Britain declares war on Germany, citing Belgian neutrality as reason
Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo
Irish Home Rule Act provides for a separate Parliament in Ireland; the position of Ulster to be decided after the War
Chaplin and De Mille make their first films
Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of the king's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby and dies
Third Irish Home Rule Bill rejected by House of Lords - threat of civil war in Ireland - formation of Ulster Volunteers to oppose Home Rule
Suffragette demonstrations in London - Mrs Pankhurst imprisoned
Trade Union Act in Britain establishes the right to use Union funds for political purposes
Invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearley of Sheffield
Geiger invents his counter to measure radioactivity
Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) founded in Britain
The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks on maiden voyage - loss of 1,513 lives
Captain Scott's last expedition - he and his team reach the south pole on Jan 18th; all die on the way back, their bodies found in November
Irish Home Rule crisis grows in Britain
Britain nationalises the telephone system
Discovery of the 'Piltdown Man' - hoax, exposed in 1953
National Insurance introduced in Britain
Coronation of George V
Census: Population - England and Wales: 36 Million; Scotland: 4.6 Million; N Ireland: 1.25 Million
Parliament Act in Britain reduces the power of the House of Lords
British MPs receive a salary
First British Official Secrets Act
Rutherford: theory of atomic structures
Strikes by seamen, dock and transport workers (1911-1912)
Edward VII dies - George V becomes King
Railway strike and coal strikes in Britain
Constitutional crisis in Britain
Dr Crippen caught by radio telegraphy; hanged 23 Nov at Pentonville
Madame Curie isolates radium
Halley's comet reappears
Tango becomes popular in North America and Europe
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
First photograph using artificial light
Zeppelin builds airship
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company founded