1774 - 1798 (24 years)
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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1774 | - 1774: Franz Anton Mesmer began the psychotherapeutic practive of hypnotism, which he called 'animal magnetism' and conceived it to be an actual fluid. Apparently he had some success with psychosomatic illnesses. Part of his technique seems to have been used earlier by exorcists.
- 1774: Parliament passes the Coercive Acts in retaliation for the 'Boston Tea Party'
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| 2 | 1775 | - 1775: American War of Independence begins when colonists fight British troops at Lexington.
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| 3 | 1776 | - 1776: Adam Smith, in 'The Wealth of Nations', advanced the idea that businesses survive through successful trading in pursuit of their self-interest, and that the resulting equilibrium was not by design.
- 1776: On 4 JUL, the American Congress passes their Declaration of Independence from Britain. Edward Gibbons' publishes his 'Decline and Fall'
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| 4 | 1778 | - 1778: Cook explores Hawaiian Islands. He fails to locate Northwest Passage from Alaskan side and is killed in Hawaii the following year
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| 5 | 1779 | - 1779: The rise of Wyvill's Association Movement
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| 6 | 1780 | - 1780: The Gordon Riots develop from a procession to petition parliament against the Catholic Relief Act
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| 7 | 1781 | - 1781: Frederick William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus by its movement, although at the time he supposed it to be a comet
- 1781: The Americans obtain a great victory of British troops at the surrender of Yorktown
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| 8 | 1782 | - 1782: End of Lord North's time as Prime Minister. He is succeeded by Rockingham in his second ministry. Ireland obtains short-lived parliament
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| 9 | 1783 | - 1783: William Bentinck, Duke of Portland Prime minister (Whig)
- 1783: Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques ?tienne Montgolfier invented the first practical hot air balloon.
- 1783: Shelburne's ministry, followed by that of William Pitt the Younger. Britain recognises American independence at the Peace of Versailles. Fox-North coalition established
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| 10 | 1784 | - 1784: Parliament passes the East India Act
- 1784: First edition of 'The Times' newspaper
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| 11 | 1785 | - 1785: Pitt's motion for Parliamentary Reform is defeated
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| 12 | 1786 | - 1786: The Eden commercial treaty with France is drawn up
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| 13 | 1788 | - 1788: George III suffers his first attack of 'madness' (caused by porphyria)
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| 14 | 1789 | - 1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution
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| 15 | 1790 | - 1790: Edmund Burke publishes his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France'
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| 16 | 1791 | - 1791: The 'Celerifere', an early version of the bicycle, was built around by Comte Mede de Sivrac. It was basically a scooter with a high seat
- 1791: James Boswell publishes his 'Life of Johnson' an Thomas Paine, his 'Rights of Man'
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| 17 | 1792 | - 1792: Volta discovered he could arrange metals in a series in such a way that chemical energy is converted into electrical energy; that is, two dissimilar metals are submerged in an electrolyte and connected by an circuit and thereby exchange electrons. By 1800, he had invented the so-called voltaic cell, a pile of such metals "consisting of pairs of silver and zinc disks separated by pieces of moist cardboard"
- 1792: Coal gas is used for lighting for the first time. Mary Wollstonecraft publishes her 'Vindication of the Rights of Women'
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| 18 | 1793 | - 1793: Outbreak of War between Britain and France. The voluntary Board of Agriculture is set up. Commercial depression throughout Britain
- 1793: Speculative 'Canal Bubble' in UK bursts
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| 19 | 1794 | - 1794: Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather, proposed that "warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament...possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering those improvements by generation to its posterity."
- 1794: Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin
- 1794: Metric system introduced in France
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| 20 | 1795 | - 1795: The 'Speenhamland' system of outdoor relief is adopted, making wages up to equal the cost of subsistence
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| 21 | 1796 | - 1796: Edward Jenner investigated the folk tale that milk maids were immune to small pox, the virus variola major, and in a brief series of experiments confirmed that exposure to cow pox, the virus vaccinia, rendered immunity
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| 22 | 1798 | - 1798: Thomas Robert Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population, contended that population increses by a geometric ratio whereas the means of subsistence increase by an arithmetic ratio.
- 1798: Introduction of a tax of ten percent on incomes over ?200.
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