| 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 attempts to keep Edward VIII on the throne after scandal |
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January 20, 1936 - King George V dies; Edward VIII becomes King |
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December 11, 1936 - King Edward VIII abdicates; George VI becomes King |
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Egypt granted independence from Great Britain |
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Spanish General Francisco Franco leads uprising resulting in the Spanish Civil War |
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Italy and Germany form the Axis |
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1937 |
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Picasso paints Guernica |
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1938 |
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March 12, 1938 - Hitler annexes Austria |
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1939 |
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September 1939-May 1940 - WSC is First Lord of the Admiralty |
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August 23, 1939 - Stalin and Hitler sign Nazi-Soviet Pact |
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September-December 1939 - WSC's first correspondence with FDR |
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September 1, 1939 - German army invades Poland |
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September 3, 1939 - Britain and France declare war on Germany |
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December 15, 1939 - Gone with the Wind premieres in Atlanta |
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1940 |
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May 10, 1940 - WSC becomes Prime Minister when Neville Chamberlain resigns, also serves as First Lord of the Treasury and Minister of Defense |
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April 9, 1940 - Germany invades Norway and Denmark |
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WSC named Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" |
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June 10, 1940 - Mussolini declares war on the Allies |
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June 14, 1940 - German army enters Paris |
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September 1940 - German Luftwaffe begin nightly bombing raids on London |
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November 18, 1940 - Royal Air Force use airborne radar successfully |
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Japan and Hungary join the Axis |
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Ernest Hemingway publishes For Whom the Bell Tolls |
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1941 |
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August 1941 - WSC's first meeting with FDR (off the coast of Newfoundland) |
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June 22, 1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union |
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December 1941 - WSC meets FDR in Washington, D.C., addresses U.S. Congress, travels to Canada |
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July 12, 1941 - Soviet Union and Great Britain sign agreement of mutual aid |
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December 7, 1941 - Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II |
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December 11, 1941 - Germany declares war on U.S. |
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1942 |
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June 1942 - WSC meets with FDR at Hyde Park |
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August 7, 1942 - U.S. Marines first use Navajo Code Talkers to transmit telephone and radio messages |
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August 1942 - WSC meets with Stalin in Moscow |
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August 24, 1942 - German army enters Stalingrad |
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August 1942 - Manhattan project, code name for U.S. project to produce an atomic bomb, begins |
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November 8, 1942 - British and Americans invade North Africa in operation TORCH |
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1943 |
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January 1943 - WSC meets with FDR in Casablanca |
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July 10, 1943 - Allied troops land in German-occupied Sicily |
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May 1943 - WCS addresses U.S. Congress for a second time |
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September 8, 1943 - Italy surrenders to the Allies |
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August-September 1943 - WSC meets with FDR at Hyde Park; attends the Quebec conference |
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December 1943 - "Colossus," a British computer used for code-breaking, is operational |
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September 5, 1943 - WSC receives honorary degree from Harvard |
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November 1943 - First meeting of the "Big Three" -Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill - in Tehran, Iran |
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1944 |
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June 12, 1944 - WSC travels to Normandy beaches |
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February 1944 - Luftwaffe makes heaviest raids on London since 1941 |
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October 1944 - WSC and Stalin meet in Moscow |
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June 6, 1944 - D-Day invasion into Normandy, France |
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August 24, 1944 - U.S. Army liberates Paris |
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July 1944-April 1945 - Concentration camps liberated by American, British, and Soviet Forces |
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1945 |
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February 1945 - Big Three meet in Yalta, Soviet Union |
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April 12, 1945 - President Roosevelt dies; Harry S Truman becomes 33rd U.S. President |
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February 15, 1945 - WSC's final meeting with FDR (off coast of Alexandria, Egypt) |
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May 8, 1945 - Germany surrenders |
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May 8, 1945 - Announces "VE Day" |
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Conservative party loses election; WSC turned out of office. Clement Attlee, leader of Labour party, becomes Prime Minister
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June 25, 1945 - United Nations Charter approved |
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August 6 and 9, 1945 - U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan |
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July 1945 - WSC meets with Truman and Stalin in Potsdam, Germany |
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September 2, 1945 - World War II ends when Japan formally surrenders onboard U.S. battleship Missouri |
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1946 |
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January-March 1946 - WSC visits the U.S. and Cuba, meets Truman |
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March 5, 1946 - WSC gives "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri |
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1947 |
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India gains independence from Great Britain |
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1948 |
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January 30, 1948 - Gandhi assassinated |
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April 3, 1948 - Harry S Truman signs European Recovery Act, authorizing the Marshall Plan aid for Europe |
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1949 |
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Republic of Ireland established when "Eire" leaves British Commonwealth |
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April 4, 1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created |
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1950 |
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June 25, 1950 - Korean War begins |
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August 1950 - British Commonwealth troops arrive in Korea |
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1951 |
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WSC elected Prime Minister again at age 76 |
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1952 |
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February 6, 1952 - King George VI dies; Elizabeth II becomes Queen |
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1953 |
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January 1953 - WSC meets Truman in Washington and President-elect Eisenhower in New York; final address to U.S. Congress |
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January 20, 1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes 34th U.S. |
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April 1953 - WSC knighted by Queen Elizabeth as knight of the Order of the Garter, the UK's highest order of knighthood |
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March 5, 1953 - Joseph Stalin dies; Nikita Khrushchev becomes secretary general of Soviet Communist Party |
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December 1953 - WSC attends Bermuda conference, meets with Eisenhower in an attempt to gain support for a top-level dialog with new Soviet leadership |
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WSC wins Nobel Prize for Literature for his "mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values" |
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1955 |
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April 1955 - WSC retires as Prime Minister |
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1956 |
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January 27, 1956 - Elvis Presley releases "Heartbreak Hotel," his first Gold Record, selling more than 1,000,000 copies |
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1957 |
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October 4, 1957 - Soviet Union launches Sputnik I |
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1958 |
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Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union |
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1959 |
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April-May 1959 - WSC meets with Eisenhower in Washington, D.C. |
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February 16, 1959 - Fidel Castro becomes leader of Cuba |
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1960 |
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John F. Kennedy elected 35th U.S. President |
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1961 |
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WSC makes last trip to the U.S., visits New York |
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April 12, 1961 - In first manned space flight, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth |
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May 1961 - South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth (rejoins in 1994) |
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August 13, 1961 - Berlin Wall construction begins |
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1962 |
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October 5, 1962 - The Beatles release "Love Me Do," their first record |
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October 18-29, 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis |
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1963 |
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WSC is given honorary citizenship of the United States by U.S. Congress |
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August 28, 1963 - Martin Luther King leads over 200,000 people in march on Washington; meets with President Kennedy at the White House |
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November 22, 1963 - President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas; Lyndon Baines Johnson becomes 36th U.S. President |
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1964 |
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WSC retires from Parliament |
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Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in prison in South Africa (released 1990) |
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Khrushchev is ousted from power; Leonid Brezhnev becomes General Secretary of Soviet Communist Party |
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February 7, 1964 - The Beatles arrive in New York; Beatlemania ensues |
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1965 |
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January 24, 1965 - Sir Winston Spencer Churchill dies in London at age 90 |
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January 29, 1965 - Memorial service held for Churchill at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; BBC broadcasts Eisenhower's speech |
