Our Earth's History

Timeline: Modern era

1800 – 1914 · 51 articles, earliest first. Browse this era by continent.

  1. 1799 · South AsiaTipu's Tiger: the growling organ taken at Seringapatam in 1799
  2. 1804 · The Americas"In view of the opening of the Ocian": Lewis and Clark, 1804 to 1806
  3. 1804 · The AmericasHow did Haiti win freedom in 1804, then pay France for it until 1888?
  4. 1816 · The AmericasDiary lines from Keene, 1816, and a Tambora paper withdrawn in 2016
  5. 1840 · East AsiaWhy did Britain fight over opium, and what did the 1842 treaty start?
  6. 1840 · OceaniaWhy do the Māori and English texts of the Treaty of Waitangi differ?
  7. 1847 · West AsiaFour sealed translations in 1857: Rawlinson, Behistun and cuneiform
  8. 1848 · EuropeWhy did the revolutions of 1848 spread in weeks and fail in a year?
  9. 1851 · EuropeCrystal Palace, 1,851 feet: the Great Exhibition opens, May 1, 1851
  10. 1853 · South AsiaFourteen carriages, 400 guests, 21 guns: Bombay to Thane, April 16, 1853
  11. 1854 · Oceania'Taxation without representation is tyranny': Eureka, 1854–55
  12. 1854 · East AsiaTwelve articles, no Japanese signature: Kanagawa, March 31, 1854
  13. 1856 · South AsiaPeak XV becomes Mont Everest in a letter Andrew Waugh sent in 1856
  14. 1857 · The AmericasSeven to two, March 6, 1857: the Dred Scott decision
  15. 1857 · South AsiaWhy did the 1857 uprising end the East India Company's rule of India?
  16. 1858 · EuropeA 'Stygian pool' in July 1858: Disraeli's bill and Bazalgette's sewers
  17. 1859 · EuropeCarrington's report of September 1, 1859: two patches of white light
  18. 1859 · EuropeMurray's trade sale, November 22, 1859: 1,250 copies of the Origin
  19. 1861 · OceaniaThe Cooper Creek depot emptied nine hours before Burke returned
  20. 1863 · Central AsiaA lame dervish from Tehran to Samarkand: Vámbéry's ten months, 1863–64
  21. 1863 · The AmericasJanuary 1, 1863: what the Emancipation Proclamation freed and left out
  22. 1865 · Central AsiaWas the Great Game spycraft, or Russia's conquest of Central Asia?
  23. 1868 · East AsiaThe Charter Oath of 1868: five sentences at the start of modern Japan
  24. 1869 · West AsiaHow did a canal dug by Egyptians end up owned by Britain and France?
  25. 1869 · The AmericasSixteen bonds a mile, trebled in the mountains: Promontory, 1869
  26. 1871 · East AsiaKume Kunitake's 1878 record of the Iwakura Mission, 1871-1873
  27. 1871 · AfricaThree dates, one handshake: Stanley meets Livingstone, 1871
  28. 1873 · Central AsiaHumble servant of the Emperor of All the Russias: Khiva, August 1873
  29. 1876 · East AsiaJoseon, an autonomous state: the treaty of Ganghwa, February 26, 1876
  30. 1877 · Central AsiaCoast or frontier? The 1875 debate that sent Zuo Zongtang to Kashgar
  31. 1877 · South AsiaSix counts of the dead: the Lords debate India's famine, July 1878
  32. 1879 · Africa"Every record . . . has been lost": Isandlwana, London Gazette, 1879
  33. 1879 · EuropeThree commissioners, two reports: the Tay Bridge, December 28, 1879
  34. 1880 · OceaniaFifty-six pages in Joe Byrne's hand: Ned Kelly, 1878–1880
  35. 1885 · AfricaDid the Berlin Conference really carve up Africa?
  36. 1886 · OceaniaLake floor or dry land: the terraces Tarawera took on June 10, 1886
  37. 1889 · AfricaRinderpest in Africa, 1889-1897, from Eritrea to the Cape
  38. 1889 · The AmericasWho answered for the South Fork Dam and the 1889 Johnstown Flood?
  39. 1891 · West AsiaFifty years of Persia's tobacco for 15,000 pounds a year: the Régie
  40. 1893 · Oceania'I yield to the superior force': Liliʻuokalani's protest of 1893
  41. 1896 · AfricaArticle 17, two texts: the treaty clause behind Adwa, March 1, 1896
  42. 1896 · AfricaNine by the palace clock: Zanzibar, August 27, 1896, in 37 minutes
  43. 1897 · South AsiaHaffkine's plague vaccine: Bombay 1897 and the Mulkowal inquiry
  44. 1900 · Central AsiaA spade left in the Lop desert: Sven Hedin finds Loulan, March 1900
  45. 1901 · East AsiaFour hundred fifty million taels: the Boxer Protocol of 1901
  46. 1902 · The AmericasSaint-Pierre, 1902: an election set for May 11, an eruption on May 8
  47. 1906 · West AsiaA garden in Tehran, July 1906: the sit-in that won Iran a parliament
  48. 1908 · West AsiaD'Arcy's 1901 concession and the oil strike at Masjed Soleyman, May 1908
  49. 1908 · West AsiaPaid for by subscription: the Hejaz Railway reaches Medina, 1908
  50. 1908 · Central AsiaTunguska, 1908: where the 80 million trees figure came from
  51. 1912 · EuropeTitanic, 1912: what the Senate and Lord Mersey's inquiry each concluded