1492-04-04 17:38:29

Columbus sails from Palos, Spain

(3rd August); discovers Watling Island in Bahamas (12th October); Cuba (18th October); Haiti (6th December)

1595-04-04 17:38:29

Dutch begin to colonize East Indies

1596-04-04 17:38:29

Jin Ping Mei - early Chinese novel

Composed during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The author took the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng.

1600-05-08 00:00:00

British East India Company founded

1605-05-08 00:00:00

Pilgrim Fathers, leave Plymouth, England

Onboard the Mayflower, for North America, landing at New Plymouth, Mass., to found Plymouth Colony

1605-05-08 00:00:00

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (Spain)

Part 1 published, part 2 published 1615.

1649-05-08 00:00:00

England declared a commonwealth

1652-05-08 00:00:00

Dutch establish settlement in Cape Town

1668-05-08 00:00:00

British East India Company takes control of Bombay

1708-07-15 05:56:16

British East India Company and New East India Company merged

1719-07-15 05:56:16

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe (UK)

1775-08-18 16:45:00

American Revolution

1787-08-18 16:45:00

Penal colony founded in Botany Bay, Australia

1791-08-18 16:45:00

The Haitian Revolution

1792-08-18 16:45:00

Denmark is the first nation to abolish the slave trade

1807-08-18 16:45:00

Britain abolishes slave trade in its colonies

1812-08-18 16:45:00

US declares war on Britain

1819-08-18 16:45:00

British settlement established in Singapore by East India Company

1821-08-18 16:45:00

Peru becomes independent of Spain

Followed by Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Santo Domingo. Brazil gains independence from Portugal a year later in 1822.

1838-08-18 16:45:00

First British-Afghan War

1841-08-18 16:45:00

New Zealand becomes British colony

A Maori rising against British rule occurs in 1845.

1841-08-18 16:45:00

Britain's sovereignty proclaimed over Hong Kong

1852-08-18 16:45:00

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe (US)

1857-05-25 11:22:51

Indian mutiny over British rule

Siege of Delhi begins; Delhi captured.

1880-10-26 23:48:56

The First Boer War

Fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between Great Britain and the South African Republic. The war resulted in defeat for the British and the second independence of the South African Republic.

1883-08-25 04:32:33

The Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner (South Africa)

1899-01-01 00:00:00

The White Man's Burden - Rudyard Kipling (UK)

1899-01-01 00:00:00

South Africa: Anglo-Boer war

1907-08-06 09:08:11

Revolution in China ends imperial regime

Provisional republic established

1907-08-06 09:08:11

Britain grants dominion status to its self-governing (white) colonies

1908-01-01 00:00:00

Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore (India)

1913-01-01 00:00:00

Mhatma Ghandi, leader of the Indian Passive Resistance Movement, arrested

1913-08-12 14:04:05

Rabindranath Tagore (India) wins Nobel Prize for Literature

1914-01-01 00:00:00

World War I

1916-12-09 14:03:18

Aimé Césaire (Martinique), Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal), and Léon Damas (French Guiana), meet in Paris, leading to the formation of Négritude

A literary and ideological philosophy, developed by francophone African intellectuals, writers, and politicians in France during the 1930s.

1919-01-01 00:00:00

Peace Conference opens in Versailles

Proposal to create League of Nations approved; in Treaty of Versailles Germany loses all its colonies

1919-01-01 00:00:00

A New Era - Li Ta-chao (China)

1919-08-12 14:04:05

Montagu-Chelmsford reforms (India)

Reforms permit limited self-government. Ghandi calls for an all-India mass protest movement against the Rowlatt Acts which allowed imprisonment without trial; massacre of civilians at Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar.

1920-08-12 14:04:05

Ghandi launches Non-Cooperation movement (India)

1920-08-25 04:32:33

Bliss - Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand)

Mansfield's forst collection of short stories. Followed by The Garden Party (1922).

1924-08-12 14:04:05

A Passage to India - E. M. Forster (UK)

1924-08-12 14:04:05

Balfour Declaration

Promises a "national home" for Jews in Palestine and protection of civil and religious rights of non-Jews in the territory. The declaration is rejected by the First Palestinian National Congress in 1919, the Congress calls for Arab independence.

1936-10-26 23:48:56

Minty Alley - C. L. R. James (Trinidad)

The first novel by a black West Indian to be published in Britain.

1940-04-22 06:17:40

The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead (Australia)

1945-02-11 02:21:55

Indian and Pakistani partition and independence

Beginning of the breakup of British Empire

1945-02-11 02:21:55

Foundation of United Nations

1945-02-11 02:21:55

Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Japanese surrender and end of Second World War

1947-03-27 04:17:38

India and Pakistan go to war over disputed territory in Kashmir

1948-03-27 04:17:38

Creation of state of Israel

1948-05-17 19:42:04

Apartheid, a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa.