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Mid-1700's

1750: Most people worked the land. Their tools were simple and handmade. They also lived in cottages. Their source of light came from firelight and candles. Clothes were handmade and food was grown in their backyards. These people only knew little of the world that existed around their village.

1750s: John Wesley became the leader of a religious revival. He also founded the Methodist Church. He stressed the need for a personal sense of faith. Channeling the workers' anger away form revolution and toward social reform is what the Methodists helped them with.

1750: Romaticism first appears. It shaped wester literature and arts. It lasted until about 1850.

1751-1789: 20,000 copies of the Encyclopedia written by the French philosophe Diderot were printed. Included in this book were articles on technology as well as articles on social and political reform.

1760: George III began a 60-year reign. He wrote articles about his model farm near Windsor castle. He was nicknamed "Farmer George."

1764: James Hargreaves produces the spinning jenny. It spun many threads at the same time.

1769: James Watt improved on the steam engine that was created by Thomas Newcomen. Watt's steam engine became the vital power source of the early Industrial Revolution. Matthew Boulton was the shrewd partner of Watt.

1771: Richard Arkwright invented the waterframe. It used water power to speed up spinning even more.

1776: The Wealth of Nations, written by British economist Adam Smith, is first published.

1779: Abraham Darby III built the world's first cast iron bridge.

1780s: Ned Ludd, a mythical figure, destroyed machines. He became the idol of the Luddites, rioters in England.

1780: The population exploded in the central town of the textile indsutry, Manchester. The population grew from 17,000 people to 40,000.

1789: The population of France rose from 18 million to 26 million people.

1791: Olympe de Gouges demanded equal rights in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman.

1792: Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the first women to argue that women had been excluded from the social contract. She was the best known of the British female critics.

1798: Thomas Malthus publihsed an "Essay on the Principle of Population." He believed that poverty and misery was unavoidable because the population was increasing faster than the food supply.