| YEAR |
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WINSTON CHURCHILL |
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WORLD EVENTS |
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1642 |
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First English Civil War begins |
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1649 |
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January 30, 1649 - King Charles I executed |
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1650 |
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May 26, 1650 - John Churchill, later the 1st Duke of Marlborough, born in Devon, England |
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1653 |
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Oliver Cromwell becomes "Lord Protector," an English governmental title designating the de-facto head of state |
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1658 |
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September 3, 1658 - Cromwell dies |
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1660 |
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May 29, 1660 - Charles II returns to London after monarchy is restored |
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1702 |
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Queen Anne names John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough |
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1704 |
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August 13, 1704 - Duke of Marlborough wins Battle of Blenheim |
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1705 |
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Construction of Blenheim Palace begins |
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1706 |
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Duke of Marlborough wins Battle of Ramillies |
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1722 |
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June 16, 1722 - 1st Duke of Marlborough dies |
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1732 |
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February 22, 1732 - George Washington born in Virginia |
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1743 |
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April 13, 1743 - Thomas Jefferson born in Virginia |
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1770 |
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Captain James Cook claims New South Wales, Australia as a British colony |
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1775 |
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April 19, 1775 - Battles of Lexington and Concord begin hostilities in the American revolution against Great Britain |
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1776 |
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July 4, 1776 - American colonies declare independence from Great Britain |
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1783 |
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September 3, 1783 - Treaty of Paris signed; United States independence formally recognized |
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1788 |
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July 2, 1788 - U.S. Constitution goes into effect after being ratified by the required nine states |
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1804 |
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1804 - 1806 - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark commissioned by President Jefferson to find the passage to the Pacific Ocean |
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1809 |
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February 12, 1809 - Abraham Lincoln born in Kentucky |
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1812 |
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1812-1814 - War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain |
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1817 |
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November 3, 1817 - Leonard W. Jerome, Churchill's maternal grandfather, born in New York state |
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1822 |
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June 2, 1822 - John Winston Spencer-Churchill, the 7th Duke of Marlborough and Churchill's paternal grandfather, born |
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1822 - Frances Anne Vane, Churchill's paternal grandmother, born |
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1824 |
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May 7, 1824 - Beethoven premieres his 9th Symphony |
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1825 |
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July 16, 1825 - Clara (Clarissa) Hall, Churchill's maternal grandmother, born in New York state |
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1833 |
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Slavery abolished throughout British Empire |
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1837 |
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King William IV dies, Queen Victoria ascends to the throne |
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British create a colony in New Zealand |
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1844 |
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May 13, 1844 - George Charles Spencer-Churchill, Churchill's uncle and the 8th Duke of Marlborough, born |
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May 24, 1844 - Samuel F. B. Morse marks completion of first telegraph line in U.S.; transmits historic message from U.S. Capitol to Baltimore, Maryland |
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1848 |
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January 24, 1848 - James Marshall discovers gold in California starting the "Gold Rush" |
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July 1848 - First Women's Rights Convention in the U.S. held at Seneca Falls, New York |
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Karl Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto |
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1849 |
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Feb 13, 1849 - Lord Randolph Churchill, Churchill's father and 3rd son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, born in England |
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1854 |
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January 9, 1854 - American Jennie (Jeanette) Jerome, Churchill's mother, born in Brooklyn, New York |
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1855 |
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Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass |
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1858 |
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Territories of British East India Company, including India, Burma, Ceylon, Hong Kong, placed under administration of the crown |
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1859 |
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Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species |
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1861 |
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March 4, 1861 - Abraham Lincoln becomes 16th U.S. President |
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April 12, 1861 - First shots fired in the U.S. Civil War |
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Russian Czar Alexander II frees the serfs |
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1862 |
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September 22, 1862 - Emancipation Proclamation issued, abolishing slavery in the U.S. |
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1865 |
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April 9, 1865 - U.S. Civil War ends |
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April 14, 1865 - President Lincoln assassinated, dies on April 15 |
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1867 |
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Canada becomes first British colony transformed into a "Dominion," a self-governing territory within the Empire |
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1869 |
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October 2, 1869 - Mahatma (Mohandas Karmchand) Gandhi born in India |
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Leo Tolstoy completes War and Peace |
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1871 |
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Charles Richard John Spencer Churchill (Sunny), Churchill's cousin and the 9th Duke of Marlborough, born |
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1874 |
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April 15, 1874 - Churchill's parents marry |
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First Impressionist exhibition held in Paris |
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November 30, 1874 - Winston Spencer Churchill (WSC) born in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England |
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1876 |
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March 7, 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone |
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Queen Victoria named "Empress of India" |
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1877 |
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January 1877 - WSC's grandfather, the 7th Duke of Marlborough, appointed Viceroy of Ireland |
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Compromise of 1877 ends period of southern Reconstruction in the U.S. |
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November 21, 1877 - Thomas Edison announces invention of the phonograph |
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1879 |
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December 21, 1879 - Josef Stalin born in Gori, Georgia |
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Thomas Edison develops the first practical incandescent lamp |
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1880 |
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February 1880 - WSC's brother John, called Jack, born |
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1882 |
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January 30, 1882 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt born Hyde Park, New York |
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1886 |
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January 29, 1886 - German Karl Benz patents the gasoline-powered car |
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October 28, 1886 - Statue of Liberty dedicated in New York |
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1889 |
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April 16, 1889 - Charlie Chaplin born in London |
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April 20, 1889 - Adolph Hitler born in Austria |
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Eiffel Tower completed |
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1890 |
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October 14, 1890 - Dwight David Eisenhower born Denison, Texas |
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1891 |
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British inventor William K. L. Dickson produces the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope, a motion-picture camera and viewing machine, while working for Thomas Edison |
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1893 |
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WSC enters Royal Military College at Sandhurst |
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1895 |
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January 24, 1895 - WSC's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, dies |
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WSC commissioned as second lieutenant in 4th Hussars, a cavalry regiment |
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October - December 1895 -WSC's first visit to the U.S. and Cuba |
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1896 |
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1896-1898 - WSC travels with regiment to India; works as newspaper reporter |
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June 2, 1896 - Italian Guglielmo Marconi patents his "Black Box" radio in Great Britain |
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1898 |
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WSC writes first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force |
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Theodore Roosevelt commands a volunteer force of "Rough Riders" during the Spanish-American War |
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WSC requests transfer to Egypt for campaign in Sudan |
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WSC participates in the British army's last great cavalry charge at the Battle of Omdurman |
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1899 |
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WSC writes The River War about the Sudanese campaign |
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October 1899 - Anglo-Boer War begins |
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WSC resigns from the army, runs for Parliament as a Conservative. Loses. |
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In South Africa, WSC reports for newspaper on Boer War, is captured, scales a prison wall, and escapes |
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1900 |
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WSC elected to Parliament as M.P. from Oldham (Conservative party) |
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April 14, 1900 - The Paris Exposition opens. More than 50,000,000 people eventually view the exhibits from 76,000 exhibitors and 40 nations. |
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February 12, 1900 - as cavalry officer and correspondent, WSC participates in the Battle of Hussar Hill; his brother, Jack, is wounded in the same battle |
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December 1900 - Lecture tour of U.S. and Canada. Meets President McKinley, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain |
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Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams |
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1901 |
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February 14, 1901 - WSC takes up seat in Parliament |
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January 1, 1901 - Australia becomes a Dominion |
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WSC gives maiden speech in the House of Commons |
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January 22, 1901 - Queen Victoria dies; Edward VII becomes King |
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September 14, 1901 - President McKinley assassinated, Theodore Roosevelt becomes President |
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First Nobel prizes awarded |
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1903 |
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December 17, 1903 - Wright Brothers make first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina |
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1904 |
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WSC leaves Conservative party, joins Liberal party |
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1905 |
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December 1905-April 1908 - WSC serves as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies |
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Albert Einstein publishes his theory of relativity |
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1906 |
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WSC elected as M.P. from Manchester N.W. (Liberal Party) |
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WSC meets Kaiser Wilheim II while on European holiday |
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1907 |
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New Zealand becomes a Dominion state |
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1908 |
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April 1908-February 1910 - WSC is President of the Board of Trade |
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Henry Ford manufactures the Model T |
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September 12, 1908 - WSC marries Clementine Hozier |
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Elected as M.P. from Dundee (Liberal party). Serves until 1922. |
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1909 |
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The National Negro Committee, later known as the NAACP, first meets in New York City |
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1910 |
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February 1910-October 1911 - WSC is Home Secretary |
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1910 - Union of South Africa formed as semiautonomous state under British rule |
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May 6, 1910 - King Edward VII dies, George V becomes King |
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1911 |
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October 1911-May 1915 - WSC is First Lord of the Admiralty |
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December 14, 1911 - Norwegian Roald Amundsen arrives at the South Pole |
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1912 |
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April 14-15, 1912 - The Titanic sinks |
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1913 |
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Henry Ford introduces first moving automobile assembly line |
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Woodrow Wilson becomes the 28th U.S. President |
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1914 |
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June 28, 1914 - Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo |
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August 4, 1914 - United Kingdom enters World War I |
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1915 |
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WSC urges attack on the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. Resigns Admiralty position after attack fails and Prime Minister Herbert Asquinth reshuffles government. |
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May 7, 1915 - German U-boat sinks the Lusitania |
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May-November 1915 - WSC is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster |
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Ernest Swinton, British soldier and scholar, invents the tank |
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November 1915 - WSC joins army in France, fights in the trenches, is promoted to 2nd Lieutenant Colonel, and commands battalion of 6th Royal Scots Fusilliers |
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1916 |
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December - David Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister |
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1917 |
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July 1917-January 1919 - Lloyd George appoints WSC to Minister of Munitions. Begins large scale tank production |
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March 15, 1917 - Russia's Czar Nicholas II abdicates after rioting erupts in St. Petersburg |
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April 6, 1917 - U.S. declares war on Germany |
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October 1917 - Under orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolsheviks in Russia begin armed uprising |
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1918 |
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November 11, 1918 - Armistice signed formally ending World War I |
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1918 Representation of the People Act gives British women over age 30 the right to vote |
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1919 |
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January 1919-February 1921 - WSC is Secretary of State for the War and Air |
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June 28, 1919 - Treaty of Versailles signed ending World War I |
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1920 |
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August 18, 1920 - 19th Amendment ratified giving women in the U.S. the right to vote |
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1921 |
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February 1921-October 1922 - WSC is Secretary of State for the Colonies |
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WSC participates in Irish Treaty negotiations with Irish nationalist and founder of the Irish Republican Army, Michael Collins |
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Irish Free State (later called Eire') created in Southern Ireland; six northern counties become Northern Ireland and remain within the United Kingdom |
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March 1921 - WSC attends Cairo Conference |
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March 1921 - Cairo Conference establishes the government, ethnic composition, and political boundaries of Iraq and other portions of the Middle East |
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June 26, 1921 - Churchill's mother, Lady Churchill, dies |
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1922 |
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WSC loses election, out of Parliament |
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November 14, 1922 - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins daily broadcasts |
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Benito Mussolini creates fascist state in Italy |
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James Joyce publishes Ulysses, T.S. Eliot writes The Waste Land |
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1923 |
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1923-1931 - WSC publishes World Crisis, a multi-volume history of World War I |
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1924 |
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October 1924 - WSC rejoins Conservative party, elected M.P. for Epping |
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Stalin takes power in Soviet Union when Lenin dies |
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1924--1929 - WSC serves as Chancellor of the Exchequer |
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1925 |
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Hitler publishes first volume of Mein Kampf |
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African American philosopher Alain Locke publishes The New Negro, defining and popularizing the Harlem Renaissance movement |
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1927 |
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BBC becomes British Broadcasting Corporation, converts from private company to public body |
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May 20-21, 1927 - Charles Lindbergh makes first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean |
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Warner Brothers releases The Jazz Singer, the first major sound film |
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First demonstration of television in the U.S. |
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1928 |
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British women 21 and over are granted right to vote |
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Soviet Union begins first Five Year Plan |
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1929 |
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August-October 1929 - WSC travels across Canada and U.S., meets William Randolph Hearst and Charlie Chaplin |
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January 15, 1929 - Martin Luther King, Jr. is born in Georgia |
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October 29, 1929 - WSC arrives in New York. Loses over 10,000 pounds when market crashes |
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October 29, 1929 - New York Stock Market crashes |
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1930 |
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March 12, 1930 - Gandhi begins Dandi March (Salt March) |
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1931 |
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December 1931-March 1932 - On lecture tour of nineteen U.S cities, WSC is hit by car and hospitalized. Visits Bahamas |
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British Commonwealth of Nations formalized by the Statute of Westminster, an act of Parliament giving formal recognition to the autonomy of the Dominions |
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1932 |
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May 8, 1932 - WSC's first radio broadcast to the U.S. |
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) elected 32nd U.S. President |
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Iraq gains independence from Great Britain |
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1933 |
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1933-1938 - WSC publishes Marlborough, His Life and Times, a six volume set about his ancestor |
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June 30, 1933 - Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany |
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1936 |
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WSC attemp |