ROMAN LONDON
43 Roman Londinium founded.
61 Revolt against the Romans by Boadicea; Londinium sacked.
2C Roman wall constructed.
5C Londinium evacuated by the Romans.
8C-10C Viking raids and barbarian invasions.

SAXON DYNASTY
1016 Edmund Ironside elected king by the assembly (gamut) of London; died the same year; succeeded by Canute.
1042-66 Reign of Edward the Confessor.
1065 Westminster Abbey founded.
1066 Norman invasion.

NORMAN DYNASTY
1066-87 Reign of William I (William the Conqueror.)
1067 Coronation of William I. Royal charter granted to the city.
1067-97 Construction of the Tower of London.
1087-1100 Reign of William II (Rufus.)
1087 Construction of Westminster Hall.
1100-36 Reign of Henry I; Royal charter granted to the City.
1135-54 Reign of Stephen.
1136   St. Paul’s Cathedral and many wooden houses destroyed by fire.

PLANTAGENET DYNASTY
1154-89 Reign of Henry II.
1157  Arrival of Hanseatic merchants in the City of London.
1189-99 Reign of Richard I (the Lionheart.)
1192 Election of Henry Fitzailwin as first Mayor of the City.
1199-1216 Reign of John (Lackland); royal charter granted to the City.
1209 Construction of the first stone bridge (London Bridge) replacing the Roman bridge.
1216 Magna Carta signed at Runnymede.
1216-72 Reign of Henry III.
1224 Law courts established at Westminster.
1290 Jews banished from the City of London.
1272-1377 Reigns of Edward I (1272-1307), Edward II (1307-1327), and Edward III (1327-1377).
1349 Black Death: population of London reduced by half to 30,000.
1377-99 Reign of Richard II.
1381 The Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler.

HOUSE OF LANCASTER
1399-1461 Reigns of Henry IV (1399-1413), Henry V (1413-1422) and Henry VI (1422-1461).
1450 Rebellion of the men of Kent headed by Jack Cade; they occupied London for three days.
1453 Beginning of Wars of the Roses between Lancaster and York; Henry VI imprisoned in the Tower of London.

HOUSE OF YORK
1461-83 Reign of Edward IV.
1476 First English printing press set up at Westminster by William Caxton.
1483 Edward IV’s sons assassinated (The Little Princes in the Tower).
1483-85 Reigns of Edward V (1483) and Richard III (1483-1485).

HOUSE OF TUDOR
1485-1509 Reign of Henry VII.
1497 Rebellion of the Cornishmen under Audley.
1499   Perkin Warbeck, Pretender to the throne, hanged at Tyburn.
1509-47 Reign of Henry VIII.
1530 Construction of St. James’s Palace.
1536 Execution of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII.
1536-39 Henrican Reformation: Papal authority rejected by the English Church; suppression of the monasteries.
1547-58 Reigns of Edward VI (1547-1553) and Mary I (Bloody Mary) (1553-1558).
1555 Execution at Smithfield of 300 Protestants. Founding of the Muscovy Company.
1558 Population 100,000.
1558-1603 Reign of Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess, the Virgin Queen).
1567 First Exchange established in the City.
1581 Founding of the Turkey (later Levant) Company.
1599 Inauguration of the Globe Theatre in Southwark.
1600 Charter of incorporation granted to the East India Company.

HOUSE OF STUART
1603-25 Reign of James I (James VI of Scotland).
1603 Population 200,000.
1604 The Gunpowder Plot was hatched by a group of Roman Catholics seeking religious toleration: Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Guy Fawkes intended to blow up the House of Lords, the king and queen and heir to the throne. They rented a cellar extending under Parliament and enlisted Guy Fawkes, a little-known individual from abroad, to plant the explosive in the cellar: at least 20 barrels of gunpowder camouflaged with coal and faggots. Seeking to recruit additional support, Catesby approached Francis Tresham, who warned Lord Monteagle, his brother-in-law, not to attend Parliament on the fateful day. Monteagle alerted the government and Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellar late on 4 November. Under torture on the rack he revealed the names of his fellow conspirators. Catesby and Percy were killed while resisting arrest. The others were tried and executed on 31 January 1606. Parliament declared 5 November a day of public thanksgiving.
1615 Inigo Jones appointed Surveyor of the King’s Works.
1616 Queen’s House at Greenwich, the first Classical building in England, designed by Inigo Jones.
1625-49 Reign of Charles I.
1635 Covent Garden Piazza built.
1642 Beginning of the Civil War: Charles I opposed by Parliament; Royalists confronted at Turnham Green by City trainbands (citizen militia); Charles I deterred from attacking London.
1649 Execution of Charles I on Tuesday 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall. He was buried a week later at Windsor. He had been brought to trial on 20 January in Westminster Hall on a charge of high treason and ‘other high crimes against the realm of England’ before a specially constituted high court of justice, which he refused to recognize on the grounds that ‘a King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction of earth’. He maintained that he stood for ‘the liberty of the people of England’ and refused to plead. On 27 January he was sentenced to death as a ‘tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy’. He claimed that he was martyr for the people.
1649-60 Commonwealth.
1653 Cromwell appointed Protector of the Commonwealth.
1660 Restoration.
1660-85 Reign of Charles II (the Merry Monarch, the Black Boy).
1660 Royal warrants granted permitting theatres in Covent Garden.
1661 Design of Bloomsbury Square, the first London square.
1665 Great Plague: records give the total mortality as 75,000 out of a population of 460,000, rapidly spreading through London from St. Giles-in-the-Fields and causing the most deaths in the poorest, most over-crowded districts on the outskirts of the City (Stepney, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, Cripplegate and Westminster). In June 1665 the king and the court left London, only to return the following February; Parliament met briefly at Oxford. A vivid account of events is given by Daniel Defoe in his Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
1666 Publication of the first London newspaper.
1666 The Great Fire of London was the worst in the history of the capital; it lasted three days (2 to 5 September) and destroyed four fifths of the City: St. Paul’s Cathedral, 87 parish churches, most of the civic buildings and 13,000 houses. The Monument was erected near to the point where it began in the king’s baker’s house in Pudding Lane near London Bridge; it ended at Pie corner near Smithfield. The flames fanned by a strong east wind, raged throughout Monday and during part of Tuesday; on Wednesday the fire slackened and on Thursday it was thought to be extinguished. When it burst out again that evening at the Temple, adjoining houses were demolished with gunpowder to prevent it from spreading further. People escaped with what they could carry by boat or on foot to Moorfields or the hills of Hampstead and Highgate. The most vivid account is told in the Diary of Samuel Pepys.
1666-1723 Reconstruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the City churches by Sir Christopher Wren.
1670 Founding of the Hudson Bay Company.
1682 The Royal Hospital in Chelsea is founded for veteran soldiers.
1685-88 Reign of James II.
1685 Arrival of Huguenot refugees from France following the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes.
1688 Glorious Revolution: flight into exile of James II; crown offered to William
of Orange.
1689-1702 Reigns of William III and Mary II until her death in 1694 and then of William
alone.
1694 Founding of the Bank of England.
1700 Population 670,000.
1701 Publication of the Daily Courant newspaper.
1702-14 Reign of Queen Anne.

HOUSE OF HANOVER
1714-60 Reigns of George I (1714-1727) and George II (1727-1760).
1750 Construction of Westminster Bridge.
1753 British Museum established.
1756-63  Seven Years War.
1760-1820 Reign of George III.
1775-83 American War of Independence.
1780 Gordon Riots against Roman Catholics.
1801 First Census: population 1,100,000.
1811-20 Reign of the future George IV as Prince Regent.
1812  Regent Street created by John Nash.
1820-30 Reign of George IV.
1824 Opening of the National Gallery.
1828 Founding of King’s College.
1832 Reform Bill.
1836 University of London incorporated by charter as an examining body.
1835-60  Reconstruction of the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament).
1837-1901 Reign of Queen Victoria.
1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Population 2,700,000.
1852 Founding of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
1856-1909 Building of the South Kensington museums.
1860 Horse-drawn trams introduced.
1863 First underground railway excavated.
1894 Opening of Tower Bridge.
1897 First omnibuses (buses) introduced.

HOUSE OF WINDSOR (Saxe-Coburg until 1917)
1901-10 Reign of Edward VII.
1901 Population 6,600,000.
1909 Establishment of the Port of London Authority (PLO) to manage the docks.
1910-36 Reign of George V.
1914-18 Zeppelin raids on London.
1933 Establishment of London Transport to coordinate public transport; underground, bus and railway.
1936 Accession and abdication of Edward VIII.
1936-52 Reign of George VI.
1938  Establishment of the Green Belt.
1939 Population 8,610,000.
1940-41 London Blitz (aerial bombardment of London) during the Battle of Britain began in 1940 after the British retreat from Dunkerque (Dunkirk). The first heavy raids on London by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) began on 7 September. Only adverse weather conditions brought respite. During the eight month bombardment, which ceased in May 1941, 190,000 bombs were dropped; 43,000 civilians died, 61,000 were seriously injured; 404 firemen were killed on duty and 3,000 were injured; 1.25 million houses in the London region were damaged. At first people took refuge in Anderson shelters, which were effective but damp and crowded; later they spent the hours of darkness in the underground stations, where bunks and sanitary facilities were installed; only three underground stations received direct hits resulting in deaths. St. Paul’s Cathedral was hit twice.
1951 The Festival of Britain, an echo of the Great Exhibition of 1851, was promoted as a ‘tonic to the nation’ to bring colour, light and fun to the postwar scene. The theme The Land and the People was presented in pavilions designed in new contemporary styles and materials by a team of young and untried architects and embellished by sculptors and painters. The small site (27 acres) on the South Bank was dominated by the Skylon, a cigar-shaped vertical feature which appeared to float in mid-air, and the Dome of Discovery (diameter 365 ft), a circular pavilion made of steel and aluminum. Between May and September 8.5 million people visited the Festival where they learned about British achievement in arts, sciences and industrial design and enjoyed themselves at the Pleasure Gardens in Battersea Park: fireworks, Music Hall shows, a vast single pole tent as a Dance pavilion, sticks of Festival Rock, the tree walk, the crazy Emmett railway and a Mississippi Showboat on the river.
1952 Elizabeth II is crowned Queen.
1958 First women peers introduced to the House of Lords. Gatwick Airport opened.
1966 Founding of City University.
1971 15 February: introduction of decimal coinage.
1975 Population 7 million.
1976 Opening of the National Theatre.
1979 Margaret Thatcher elected the first woman Prime Minister.
1980 London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) set up to regenerate the redundant London Docks. First London Marathon run. Marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
1981 Barbican Centre opened in the City of London; Thames Barrier raised.
1986 Deregulation of trading on the Stock Exchange. Abolition of the Greater London Council.
1988   Jets begin landing at City Airport.
1995 50th Anniversary of Victory in Europe. Launch of the National Lottery.
1996 The queen celebrates her 70th birthday. After 700 years the Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.
1997 Inauguration of the British Library, St. Pancras. 1-6 September: London mourns Diana, Princess of Wales.
1998 Opening of Globe Theatre.
1999-2000 Millennium projects completed: Dome (Greenwich), Jubilee Line extension, Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern (Bankside), British Airways London Eye (South Bank).
2000  Election of Mayor of London.

Source: The Green Guide - London (Watford, UK: Michelin Travel Publications, 2001), 14-18.

RETURN TO HIS 499 SYLLABUS
RETURN TO HIS 599 SYLLABUS