Timeline of the early years of Queen Victoria's reign

Timeline of the early years of Queen Victoria's reign

1840Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

1837City Life in Victorian Britain

1837Accession of Queen Victoria

1839-1842The first Opium War Against China

1846Repeal of the Corn Laws

1848Revolutions in Europe

1851The great Exhibition

1845Irish Potato Famine

1901The Queen Victoria's death

1853-1856The Crimean War

1857The Indian Mutiny

1861The Prince Albert's death

1856-1860The Second Opium War

The revolutionary movement began in Italy with a local revolution in Sicily in January 1848, and, after the revolution of February 24 in France, the movement extended throughout the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries.The Revolutions of 1848 were caused by changes in European economics and social structure in the 19th century, including food shortages and the desire for increased suffrage (voting rights). They all ended in failure and repression and were followed by widespread disillusionment among liberals. Nevertheless, they effectively catalysed significant reforms such as the abolition of feudalism in Austria and Germany, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands.

The Corn Laws were a deeply divisive issue in the first half of the nineteenth century. Against the backdrop of a strained post-war economy, Tory Prime Minister Lord Liverpool passed the Corn Laws in 1815. These laws placed tariffs on cereal grain imported from other countries such as wheat and maize to favour domestic agriculture.Objections to the Corn Laws from all levels of society were evident from the moment they were enacted. On 20th March 1815, at the third reading of the Bill in the House of Lords, a formal protest was entered by eleven peers, including two members of the Royal Family: the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of Gloucester. Despite intense and mounting opposition for decades, the Corn Laws were not repealed until 1846. The repeal of the Corn Laws ushered in a new era of Free Trade that would characterise British economic policy for the rest of the nineteenth century.

In the early hours of June 20, 1837, Victoria received a call from the archbishop of Canterbury and the lord chamberlain and learned of the death of William IV, third son of George III. She was small, carried herself well, and had a delightful silvery voice, which she retained all her life. The accession of a young woman was romantically popular. But because of the existence in Hanover of the Salic law, which prevented succession by a woman, the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover became separated, the latter passing to William IV’s eldest surviving brother, Ernest, the unpopular duke of Cumberland. Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, empire. At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.

Crimean War, (October 1853–February 1856), war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the holy places in Palestine.After the Russian Black Sea fleet destroyed a Turkish squadron at Sinope, on the Turkish side of the Black Sea, the British and French fleets entered the Black Sea on January 3, 1854, to protect Turkish transports. On March 28 Britain and France declared war on Russia. To satisfy Austria and avoid having that country also enter the war, Russia evacuated the Danubian principalities. Austria occupied them in August 1854. The Crimean War produced about 500,000 total casualties, with about half suffered by each side. A disproportionate number of deaths were caused by disease.