20th Century Timeline
| 1900 | John Rylands Library, Manchester opened; Labour Party formed; 1 in 6 people were employed ‘in service’ |
| 1901 | A census was held on Sunday 31 March; the population was 41.6 million; Queen Victoria died on 21st January 1901, aged 81. Her eldest son became Edward VII |
| 1902 | End of 2nd Boer War 31 May 1902; Newton Heath FC change their named to Manchester United |
| 1903 | Suffragettes formed – On 10th October 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst held a meeting at her house at 62 Nelson Street, Manchester and formed a new organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU); 1st manned aeroplane flight by the Wright Brothers; |
| 1905 | Albert Einstein publishes his Theory of Relativity |
| 1907 | Scout movement founded |
| 1909 | Old Age Pensions introduced by Lloyd George |
| 1910 | Edward VII dies his eldest son becomes George V; Girl Guides founded; Survey of Land Ownership in England and Wales; Pretoria Pit Disaster, Westhoughton; Manchester United move to Old Trafford |
| 1911 | A census was held on Sunday 2 April; population 42.1 million; 1911 census was boycotted by suffragettes; National Insurance Act gave sickness benefits; Unemployment benefit introduced; Mothers’ maiden name added to the GRO birth index |
| 1912 | RMS Titanic sinks; spouses surname added to the GRO marriage index; 1st cinema opens in Clevedon, Somerset |
| 1913 | Sufragette Emily Wilding Davison throws herself in front of the King’s horse at Derby; Suffragettes attack Manchester Art Gallery; Caerphilly mining disaster; |
| 1914 | World War 1 begins; Battle of Ypres; PALS Battalions formed 1915 |
| 1915 | Lusitania sunk Gallipoli |
| 1916 | Battle of Verdun; Battle of Jutland; Battle of the Somme; Military Service Act – compulsory military conscription; Daylight saving time introduced; Zeppelin bombing raid killed 13 people in Bolton |
| 1917 | Russian Revolution; Battle of Passchendale; USA enters the war |
| 1918 | Men over 21 and women over 30 who were householders or wives of householders were allowed to vote; WW1 ends - Armistice Day 11 November |
| 1919 | Treaty of Versailles |
| 1920 | Oxford University admit women to degrees |
| 1921 | Sunday 19 June – census; population 44 million |
| 1922 | Irish Free State established; Four Courts burns down in Dublin – many records destroyed |
| 1923 | 1st match played at the old Wembley Stadium between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham. Bolton won; Manchester City FC move to Maine Road |
| 1926 | John Logie Baird demonstrates television for the first time; General Strike; The future Elizabeth II born |
| 1927 | Adoption of Children Act; British Broadcasting Company founded |
| 1928 | Women over 21 years of age allowed to vote; Alexander Fleming discovers Penicillin |
| 1929 | Wall Street Crash in USA; Worldwide economic depression; Minimum age for marriage raised to 16; Workhouses abolished |
| 1930 | One in five in the UK were unemployed |
| 1931 | Sunday 26 April – census; population 46 million |
| 1933 | Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; refugees from Nazi Germany begin arriving in the UK |
| 1934 | Manchester Central Library opened |
| 1936 | George V dies, his eldest son becomes Edward VIII but is never crowned due to his relationship with Mrs Simpson; in December his brother becomes George VI; Spanish Civil War; The Jarrow March |
| 1937 | Basque children brought to England to escape danger; Sir Frank Whittle invents the jet engine |
| 1938 | First Kindertransport of Jewish children were evacuated from Nazi Germany |
| 1939 | Germany invades Poland - Britain and France declare war on Germany. Operation Pied Piper, the evacuation of women and children from major cities begins; compulsory Military National Service begins |
| 1940 | Battle of Britain; the Blitz; Dunkirk evacuations; Manchester region bombed |
| 1941 | No census was held due to the war; Japan bombs Pearl Harbour; America joins the war |
| 1942 | Battle of El Alamein; American soldiers based in Britain – known as GIs because ‘Government Issue’ written on their kit |
| 1943 | Dambuster Raids |
| 1944 | D-Day landings |
| 1945 | Victory in Europe (VE Day) – 8 May; Victory in Japan (VJ Day) 15 August; George Orwell wrote Animal Farm |
| 1946 | An extremely cold winter, lots of snow everywhere. The cold weather continued until March 1947 |
| 1947 | Education now compulsory to 15 years of age |
| 1948 | National Health Service begins; Summer Olympics held in London – known as the Austerity Olympics; Caribbean migrants arrive at Tilbury aboard the SS Empire Windrush |
| 1951 | Sunday 8 April census; population 50.2 million; Festival of Britain |
| 1952 | Great Smog of London kills many people; George VI dies and his eldest daughter becomes Queen Elizabeth II; National identity cards abolished |
| 1953 | Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II; floods; Hillary and Tenzing climb Everest |
| 1957 | Windscale disaster; |
| 1961 | Sunday 23 April – census; population 52.8 million; Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space |
| 1962 | Winter – the Big Freeze |
| 1966 | England win the World Cup |
| 1969 | Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to land on the moon |
| 1971 | Sunday 25 April – census; population 55.9 million; Decimalisation; All men and women aged 18 and over allowed to vote |
| 1973 | Britain and Ireland join the European Economic Community; Concorde crosses the Atlantic |
| 1974 | Local Government Act changed county boundaries – Greater Manchester formed |
| 1975 | Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act |
| 1977 | National Archives in Kew open |
| 1981 | Sunday 5 April – census; population 56.3 million; Thatcher (Conservative Party) becomes Britain’s first female Prime Minister; Riots across Britain |
| 1982 | Falklands War |
| 1984 | Miners Strike |
| 1990 | Poll Tax Riots against the introduction of the Community Charge Rate (known as the Poll Tax); 1st Gulf War |
| 1991 | Sunday 21 April – census; population 57.8 million; Time Berners Lee invents the World Wide Web |
| 1993 | European Union established |
| 1994 | Channel Tunnel opens |
| 1997 | Princess Diana dies |
| 1999 | Separate parliaments for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland |