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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1840 | |
| 2 | 1841 | |
| 3 | 1842 | |
| 4 | 1843 | |
| 5 | 1844 | |
| 6 | 1845 | |
| 7 | 1846 | |
| 8 | 1847 | |
| 9 | 1848 | |
| 10 | 1849 | - 1849: USA - Zachary Taylor president of the USA 1849-1850. Zachary Taylor died while in office.
- 1849: UK - Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
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| 11 | 1850 | - 1850: USA - American Joel Houghton invented the first dishwasher. He made it out of wood, and gave it a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on the dishes inside. It didn't really work, but it did get the first 'dishwasher' patent
- 1850: UK - First machine-made paper bag
- 1850: UK - Mines Inspectorate created, helps protect adult male mine workers
- 1850: USA - Millard Fillmore president of the USA 1850-1853. Vice president under Zachary Taylor, he was sworn in as president after Taylor's death.
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| 12 | 1851 | - 1851: UK - The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success
- 1851: UK - Window tax abolished
- 1851: USA - Patent for sewing machine issued to Isaac Singer
- 1851: UK - British Census shows 10,736,000 females, 8,155,000 of whom were aged 10 and older, largest occupational group domestic service workers, 905,000, 145,000 washerwomen, 55,000 charwomen (cleaners), 272,000 in cotton industry, 113,000 in woolen industry, 140,000 in lace, hosiery and linen
- 1851: Europe - First submarine cable, Dover to Calais
- 1851: London, UK - Reuters opens news agency
- 1851: Africa - Livingstone's explorations begin
- 1851: Australia - Population of Australia rises from 405,000 in 1851 to 1,168,000 in 1861
- Sep 1851: Melbourne, Australia - Gold fever - 19,000 immigrants land in one month, for the whole year 94,664, seven times as many as 1851
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| 13 | 1852 | |
| 14 | 1853 | |
| 15 | 1854 | |
| 16 | 1855 | - 1855: UK - John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump.
- 1855: UK - Palmerston's first government comes to power
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| 17 | 1856 | |
| 18 | 1857 | |
| 19 | 1858 | |
| 20 | 1859 | |
| 21 | 1860 | |
| 22 | 1861 | |
| 23 | 1862 | |
| 24 | 1863 | |
| 25 | 1864 | |
| 26 | 1865 | |
| 27 | 1866 | |
| 28 | 1867 | |
| 29 | 1868 | |
| 30 | 1869 | |
| 31 | 1870 | |
| 32 | 1871 | |
| 33 | 1872 | - 1872: UK - Secret voting is introduced for elections
- 1872: UK - Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act
- 1872: USA - A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog.
- 1872: UK - J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill.
- 1872: UK - Period to 1896 sees three economic slumps and two recoveries, said to be due to imported foodstuffs from US depressing Britain's agricultural business
- 1872: USA - Levi Strauss discovered rugged trousers for miners made out of sturdy brown canvas. Once this resource was exhausted, he turned to denim, which he dyed blue to become what is known now as blue jeans
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| 34 | 1873 | |
| 35 | 1874 | |
| 36 | 1875 | - 1875: UK - Benjamin Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal.
- 1875: UK - Parliament passes R.A. Cross's Conservative social reforms
- 1875: UK - Collapse of British agriculture due to cheap grain from US, wheat acreage falls by nearly a million acres
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| 37 | 1876 | |
| 38 | 1877 | |
| 39 | 1878 | |
| 40 | 1879 | |
| 41 | 1880 | - 1880: UK - William Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government
- 1880: South Africa - The first Anglo-Boer War begins
- 1880: UK - British forests now decimated except for bits of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean.
- 1880: UK - Number of agricultural labourers reduced by about 100,000 in last 10 years
- 1880: UK - Englishman John Milne invents the modern seismograph.
- 1880: UK - The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper.
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| 42 | 1881 | |
| 43 | 1882 | |
| 44 | 1884 | - 1884: Vienna, Austria - Sigmund Freud published a paper in which he found cocaine, an alkaloid in coca, effective against fatigue and neurasthenia.
- 1884: UK - Hilaire de Chardonnet invented the first artificial textile, which was made from cellulose. It was later named rayon
- 1884: UK - Parliament passes the third Reform Act which further extends the franchise
- 1884: UK - Fabian Society forms, rejects Marxian theory, embraces Ricardian theory (socialist)
- 1884: One-third of world's shipping is British, including 4/5 of world's steamships
- 1884: Burma - Britain annexes Upper Burma
- 1884: Africa - Britain and Germany partition East Africa
- 1884: UK - Excess of births over deaths in England is 13.3, in Germany 10.8, and France 1.4.
- 1884: USA - James Ritty invents the first working, mechanical cash register.
- 1884: UK - Charles Parson patents the steam turbine.
- 1884: USA - Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen.
- 1884: USA - George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film.
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| 45 | 1885 | |
| 46 | 1886 | - 1886: UK - Gladstone's third Liberal government fails to pass its first Irish Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister. Split in the Liberal Party. Salisbury establishes his second Conservative-Liberal-Unionist government.
- 1886: UK - The Royal Niger Company is chartered
- 1886: South Africa - Gold is discovered in the Transvaal
- 1886: New York, NY, USA - Statue of Liberty erected in New York Harbour
- 1886: UK - Local Government Act establishes County Councils as administrative organs of country life, replace Justices of Peace who are preserved as magistrates, creates London County Council (does not cover City); women are included with men in electorate of newly- established County Councils
- 1886: UK - British South Africa Company, formed by Yorkshireman Cecil Rhodes, colonization of Rhodesia begins
- 1886: UK - Great Dock Strike of London dockers, led by John Burns and Tom Mann
- 1886: USA - John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.
- 1886: USA - Josephine Cochrane invents the dishwasher.
- 1886: UK - 3,992,880 migrants leave UK for US, 2,235,671 leave UK for British North America during period to 1927
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| 47 | 1887 | |
| 48 | 1888 | |
| 49 | 1889 | |
| 50 | 1890 | - 1890: UK - Starting this decade, women's clothing becomes less voluminous, lawn tennis takes place of croquet as means of meeting opposite sex, bicycle becomes fashionable
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| 51 | 1891 | |
| 52 | 1892 | |
| 53 | 1893 | - 1893: USA - Whitcomb L. Judson invented the zip to help a friend with a stiff back who could not bend over to do up his shoes
- 1893: UK - Second Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass the House of Lords
- 1893: New Zealand - First nation to grant women the right to vote
- 1893: France - Car number plates introduced
- 1893: USA - Grover Cleveland president of the USA 1893-1897.
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| 54 | 1894 | - 1894: UK - Rosebery takes power with his minority Liberal government
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| 55 | 1895 | - 1895: UK - Oscar Wilde jailed for homosexuality
- 1895: UK - Guglielmo Marconi sent longwave wireless telegraphic, or radio, signals over a distance of more than a mile
- 1895: UK - Salisbury forms his third Unionist ministry
- 1895: USA - Kellogg's Corn Flakes go on sale
- 1895: France - Lumiere Brothers invent a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe. The Lumiere Brothers using their Cinematographe are the first to present a projected motion picture to an audience of more that one person.
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| 56 | 1896 | - 1896: Vienna, Austria - Sigmund Freud suggested analyzing childhood conflicts in the study of neuroses. He also devised a psychoanalytic technique called free association which allows emotionally-charged, repressed material to be consciously recognized
- 1896: Sudan - British conquest of the Sudan begins
- 1896: USA - Lightner Witmer establishes at the University of Pennsylvania a clinic of psychology, the first psychological clinic in America and perhaps in the world
- 1896: UK - Items considered luxuries in 1837 are now common comforts; food, clothing, bedding, furniture, are all far more abundant; gas and oil lighting being replaced by electricity; seaside holidays no longer rare
- 1896: UK - Howard publishes Garden Cities of Tomorrow, forerunner of modern city planning
- 1896: York, UK - Seebohm Rowntree (of chocolate fame) studies poor, determines poverty due to inadequate wages, not shiftlessness
- 1896: USA - American, H. O'Sullivan invents the rubber heel.
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| 57 | 1897 | |
| 58 | 1898 | |
| 59 | 1899 | |
| 60 | 1900 | |
| 61 | 1901 | |
| 62 | 1902 | |
| 63 | 1903 | - 1903: USA - Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright achieved flight in a manned, gasoline power-driven, heavier-than-air flying machine at Kitty Hawk.
- 1903: UK - First Silent Movie, The Great Train Robbery
- 1903: India - Plague strikes
- 1903: Ireland - Irish land purchase bill, Wyndham's Act, permits Irish to buy land from landlords with
- 1903: UK - Liverpool University, Sheffield University and Leeds University founded
- 1903: UK - Balfour's Licensing Act reduces number of houses selling alcohol
- 1903: UK - Trade depression - unemployment results; Act sets up local committees to find employment, voluntary contributions give small stipend to unemployed
- 1903: UK - Act of Parliament secures highly privileged immunity for trades unions; Labour Party formed
- 1903: UK - Free school meals for poor children, Children's Act deals with cruelty to children, prohibits imprisonment of children under 14
- 1903: UK - 72 British ships have Marconi's radio, 1912 - 450, 1914 - 879
- 1903: UK - Beginning of Old Age Pension scheme
- 1903: UK - Trade depression - unemployment results; William Beveridge publishes Unemployment, a Problem of Industry, which prompts creation of Labour Exchanges
- 1903: Europe - Louis Bleriot flies across the English Channel
- 1903: UK - Edward Binney and Harold Smith co-invent crayons.
- 1903: UK - Bottle-making machinery invented by Michael J. Owens.
- 1903: UK - Mary Anderson invents windshield wipers.
- 1903: USA - William Coolidge invents ductile tungsten used in lightbulbs.
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| 64 | 1904 | |
| 65 | 1905 | |
| 66 | 1906 | |
| 67 | 1907 | |
| 68 | 1908 | |
| 69 | 1909 | |
| 70 | 1910 | - 1910: UK - Georges Claude discovered that electricity conducted through a tube of the rare inert gas, neon, gives a bright red glow and that other gases gave off other colors, e.g., argon gives blue, helium gives yellow and white, etc.
- 1910: UK - First live opera broadcast
- 1910: UK - Halley's Comet Makes an Appearance
- 1910: UK - The Tango Catches On
- 1910: South Africa - Formation of Union of South Africa
- 1910: UK - Death of Edward VII
- 1910: UK - Population of England/Wales 36,070, Scotland - 4,761, N. Ireland - 1,251
- 1910: UK - Contributory National Insurance Scheme introduced by David Lloyd George, provides medical care, maternity benefits and sick pay
- 1910: UK - Parliament Act reduces House of Lords' veto to delaying power; House of Commons begins to pay members a stipend
- 1910: UK - There are 146,000 female clerical workers in England, up from 22,000 in 1891, 7,000 in 1881, and 19 in 1851
- 1910: USA - Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture.
- 1910: UK - Infant mortality now 110 per 1000 live births, declines steadily to 24.4 in 1956; emigration reaches about 464,000/year; divorces average 823/year, go to 3,619/year in 1920-1922, 7,955/year in 1939 (latter rise because willful desertion, cruelty and incurable insanity added to causes in 1937)
- 1910: UK - Strikes of seaman, dock and transport workers, general railway strike for higher wages during period to 1912
- 20 Jan 1910: UK - George V, ruler of England to 1936. House of Windsor (name adopted Jul 17, 1917): 2nd son of Edward VII, married Princess Mary of Teck.
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| 71 | 1911 | |
| 72 | 1912 | - 1912: North Sea - The Sinking of the Titanic: 1,515 people lose their lives.
- 1912: UK - Parachutes Invented
- 1912: UK - Piltdown Man, the 'Missing Link,' Discovered but later revealed as a fraud
- 1912: SOS Accepted as Universal Distress Signal
- 1912: UK - Motorized movie cameras invented, and replaced hand-cranked cameras.
- 1912: UK - The first tank patented by Australian inventor De La Mole.
- 1912: USA - Clarence Crane created Life Savers candy
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| 73 | 1913 | - 1913: USA - Leo Baekeland invented a plastic laminate, known as Bakelite, and later as Formica
- 1913: Detroit, MI, USA - First assembly line introduced in Ford automobile factory
- 1913: New York, NY, USA - The Armory Show, an international display of some 1600 works of modern art, and one of the more important U.S. art exhibitions ever held, opens at the 69th-regiment armory. It arouses public curiosity, generates sensational news coverage, and helps change the direction of American art
- 1913: USA - Personal Income Tax introduced
- 1913: Washington, DC, USA - Woodrow Wilson president 1913-1921.
- 1913: UK - The crossword puzzle was invented by Arthur Wynne.
- 1913: USA - The Merck Chemical Company patented what is now known as ecstasy.
- 1913: USA - Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra
- 1913: USA - Gideon Sundback invents the modern zipper.
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| 74 | 1914 | - 1914: UK - Battle of the Marne
- 1914: USA - Charlie Chaplin First Appeared as the Little Tramp
- 1914: UK - First Traffic Light
- 1914: Panama - Panama Canal Officially Opened
- 1914: Egypt - Britain proclaims protectorate over Egypt
- 1914: France - Stunning British casualty figures come from Loos -60,000; in on the Somme, 60,000 in one day; total for 5-month offensive - 400,000; Germans use poison gas at Ypres
- 1914: Ireland - Easter Monday Irish rebellion, Irish Volunteers (later Irish Republican Army) proclaim Irish Republic; German submarine lands Sir Roger Casement who is arrested, German ship with rifles intercepted off Irish coast, Casement executed; Sinn Fein and Ulster cannot agree on partition
- 1914: France - Passchendaele, British advance of 5 miles costs 400,000 casualties
- 1914: UK - Balfour Declaration promises Jews home in Palestine
- 1914: UK - First use of massed tanks (Battle of Cambrai)
- 1914: UK - King George V adopts Windsor as Royal Family's English surname in place of family's German name
- 1914: USA - Garrett A. Morgan invents the Morgan gas mask
- 4 Aug 1914: World War I begins and lasts until 1918, because Germany violates a treaty to respect neutrality of Belgium; Turkey enters war on Germany's side
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| 75 | 1915 | |
| 76 | 1916 | |
| 77 | 1917 | |
| 78 | 1918 | - 1918: UK - Influenza Epidemic
- 1918: Russia - Czar Nicholas II and his family are killed
- 1918: UK - Summer:Great Influenza Epidemic begins, reaches height end of year, new outbreak first quarter of 1919: England and Wales lose 150,000 (15,000 in London alone)
- 1918: UK - Final casualties for World War I - almost 1 million British Empire men killed, about 3 million maimed (744,000 killed are from UK)
- 1918: UK - Women over 30 given the vote (complete voting equality with men comes in 1928), all men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons) given vote
- 1918: UK - Consumer purchasing power now about 1/3 of what it was in 1914
- 1918: USA - Charles Jung invented fortune cookies.
- 1918: UK - Police strikes this year and the next
- 9 Nov 1918: Europe - Kaiser abdicates, peace signed two days later at Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I
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| 79 | 1919 | |
| 80 | 1920 | - 1920: India - Bubonic Plague strikes
- 1920: UK - League of Nations Established
- 1920: UK - Population of England/Wales - 37,887, Scotland - 4,882, N.Ireland - 1,258
- 1920: UK - Economic slump, 2,170,000 unemployed
- 1920: Palestine - Serious clashes between Jews and Arabs
- 1920: USA - US restricts immigration
- 1920: Ireland - Southern Irish parliament passes Government of Ireland Act, civil war effectively ends (until 1968)
- 1920: UK - Lloyd George sells honours in return for party contributions, partly responsible for downfall of Coalition government
- 1920: Egypt - Britain recognizes Egyptian independence
- 1920: UK - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins transmission of speech over air to public
- 1920: Italy - Benito Mussolini becomes fascist dictator
- 1920: UK - First football cup final at Wembley
- 1920: UK - Greyhound racing becomes popular
- 1920: UK - Radio and cinema begin growth (by 1929, 3,000 cinemas in Britain)
- 1920: UK - Convictions for drunkenness fall from 189,000 in 1913 to 53,000 in 1930
- 1920: France - Tuberculosis vaccine developed
- 1920: UK - The tommy gun patented by John T Thompson.
- 1920: USA - The Band-Aid invented by Earle Dickson
- 1920: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins Civil War with raids on police barracks and income tax offices all over Ireland
- 1920: UK - Communist Party of Great Britain founded; affiliation with Labour Party rebuffed = schism between communism and socialism
- 1920: UK - Population of Great Britain has grown by 5 per cent, emigration overseas declines from 256,000 in 1923 (post-war peak) to 92,000 in 1930 and many return to offset those leaving; British population gravitates to south and away from depressed areas of South Wales and northern England, Greater London is now over 8 million
- Dec 1920: Ireland - New Government of Ireland Act proposes partition of Ireland into Ulster (north) and Irish Free State (south), each to have its own government
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| 81 | 1921 | |
| 82 | 1922 | |
| 83 | 1923 | |
| 84 | 1924 | |
| 85 | 1925 | |
| 86 | 1926 | |
| 87 | 1927 | |
| 88 | 1928 | |
| 89 | 1929 | |
| 90 | 1930 | |
| 91 | 1931 | - 1931: UK - Housing Act passes, provides subsidies for slum clearance
- 1931: USA - Al Capone Imprisoned for Income Tax Evasion
- 1931: UK - Auguste Piccard Reaches Stratosphere
- 1931: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Christ Monument Built on Hilltop
- 1931: New York, NY, USA - Empire State Building Completed
- 1931: USA - First official US National Anthem
- 1931: UK - Census shows British professional workers now number .75 million (8 per cent); up from 80,000 in 1921 Census: population: England/Wales - 39,952, Scotland - 4,842, N. Ireland - 1,243
- 1931: USA - Harold Edgerton invented stop-action photography.
- 1931: Germany - Germans Max Knott and Ernst Ruska co-invent the electron microscope.
- 24 Aug 1931: UK - Resignation of Labour government accepted by King, asks Ramsay MacDonald to form National Government (Coalition) to deal with economic crisis
- 21 Oct 1931: UK - General Election, vote for National Government overwhelming, more votes for Conservatives, Liberal party in disarray
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| 92 | 1932 | - 1932: UK - Agricultural Marketing Act passed, regulates quality of produce
- 1932: USA - Air Conditioning Invented
- 1932: Amelia Earhardt First Woman to Fly Solo Across the Atlantic
- 1932: Cambridge, UK - Scientists Split the Atom
- 1932: USA - Zippo Lighters Introduced
- 1932: Ireland - De Valera succeeds Cosgrave as Prime Minister of Irish Free State, ousts British Governor-General, abolishes senate, alters law re citizenship to distinguish Irish nationality from British, but still claims Commonwealth membership
- 1932: USA - Polaroid photography invented by Edwin Herbert Land.
- 1932: UK - Unemployment falls from 3 million to below 2 million in July 1935; production rises, but imports steady, exports decline; new industries booming - chemicals, rayon, cars, radio, cost of living falls
- Sep 1932: UK - 6-7 million living on 'dole', worse in Tyne and Tees and Welsh valleys
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| 93 | 1933 | |
| 94 | 1934 | |
| 95 | 1935 | |
| 96 | 1936 | - 1936: UK - Edward VIII, ruler of England 1936. House of Windsor (name adopted Jul 17, 1917): Eldest son of George V.
- 1936: UK - BBC starts regular TV broadcasts
- 1936: USA - Dale Carnegie Publishes How to Win Friends and Influence People
- 1936: Germany - Nazi Olympics in Berlin
- 1936: Spain - Spanish Civil War Begins. Germany and Italy help rebels against government, Soviet Union aids government, as do International Brigade with volunteers from European countries and US during period to 1939
- 1936: UK - Arabs attack Jews and British troops and police, riots, strikes, outbursts of great violence, Jews attack Arabs and British, disorder continues through beginning of World War II
- 1936: USA - Bell Labs invents the voice recognition machine.
- 1936: USA - Samuel Colt patents the Colt revolver.
- 1936: Germany - Hitler and Mussolini make Rome-Berlin Axis agreement to conduct aggression together, followed by German agreement with Japan which Italy signs later
- 20 Jan 1936: UK - Death of King George V
- 12 May 1936: UK - George VI, ruler of England 1936-1952. House of Windsor (name adopted Jul 17, 1917): 2nd son of George V, Duke of York; married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
- 16 Nov 1936: UK - Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin learns Edward VIII wants to marry twice-divorced Mrs.Simpson and will abdicate if necessary, public storm breaks on 2- 3 December, King abdicates on 5 December, announces 10 December, Abdication Act rushes through 11 December; Duke of York (father of Queen Elizabeth II) becomes George VI
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| 97 | 1937 | |
| 98 | 1938 | |
| 99 | 1939 | |
| 100 | 1940 | |
| 101 | 1941 | |
| 102 | 1942 | |
| 103 | 1943 | |
| 104 | 1944 | - 1944: France - D-Day landings
- 1944: France - First German V1 and V2 Rockets Fired
- 1944: Berlin, Germany - Hitler Escapes Assassination Attempt
- 1944: USA - The kidney dialysis machine invented by Willem Kolff.
- 1944: USA - Synthetic cortisone invented by Percy Lavon Julian.
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| 105 | 1945 | |
| 106 | 1946 | |
| 107 | 1947 | |
| 108 | 1948 | |
| 109 | 1949 | |
| 110 | 1950 | |
1840 -