Witness to history: Momentous
Here are some of the major events and milestones the Duke of Edinburgh lived through:
1921: The Anglo-irish Peace Treaty results in partition 1922: Irish Civil War breaks out. Prime Minister David Lloyd George resigns.
1923: The British Mandate of Transjordan becomes a semiindependent state.
1924: Ramsay Macdonald becomes the first Labour prime minister.
1925: Chancellor Winston Churchill returns Britain to the “Gold Standard” – the pre1914 monetary system.
1926: The General Strike. The Duchess of York gives birth to Princess Elizabeth. Television is invented.
1927: The BBC begins broadcasts. Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic. 1928: The Oxford English Dictionary is completed after 70 years’ work. Walt Disney creates Mickey Mouse. Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. All women over the age of 21 get the vote.
1929: The Wall Street Crash triggers the Great Depression.
1930: Princess Margaret Rose is born.
1931: The first television outside broadcast, electric razor, German pocket battleship and neon-lit advertisements. 1932: Oswald Mosley launches the British Union of Fascists.
1933: Adolf Hitler becomes German Chancellor.
1935: Italy invades Ethiopia. 1936: George V dies and Edward VIII becomes King. His abdication forces his brother, the Duke of York, on to the throne as George VI. 1937: The Coronation. Nazi leaders greet the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Berlin.
1938: The Munich Agreement follows the invasion of Austria.
1939: War with Germany. 1940: The King and Queen stay put in Buckingham Palace through the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister.
1941: Pearl Harbour is attacked as Japan enters the war. Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, flies to Britain.
1943: Italy surrenders.
1944: The Normandy landings.
1945: Germany surrenders. Japan surrenders after atom bombs are dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
1946: The United Nations is established. Churchill warns
of an “Iron Curtain” across Europe.
1947: India becomes independent. Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.
1948: London Olympics. The National Health Service is formed. Prince Charles is born.
1949: Russia tests the A-bomb. Nato is established. 1950: UN landings at Inchon after the start of the Korean War.
1952: George VI dies and Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen. Mau Mau rising in Kenya.
1953: Sweet rationing ends in Britain. Queen Mary dies. Everest is conquered on the eve of the Coronation.
1954: A study links cancer to smoking. Elvis Presley releases his first record. Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute mile record.
1955: Cyprus goes on strike against British rule. Sir Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister due to his failing health. The Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. 1956: The Suez crisis. Prince Rainier III of Monaco marries American film star Grace Kelly.
1957: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan tells a Tory rally “most of our people have never had it so good”. The Treaty of Rome sets up the European Economic Community. Russia launches the Sputnik satellite.
1958: Race riots flare in London’s Notting Hill. The Munich air crash kills Manchester United footballers. 1959: The first UK motorway, the M1, opens.
1961:The Berlin Wall is erected. The Soviet Union puts the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into space.
1962: US spaceman John Glenn orbits the Earth. The Cuban Missile crisis is resolved.
1963: US President John F Kennedy is assassinated. Profumo scandal. Great Train
Robbery.
1964: Beatlemania grips the UK and US. Boxer Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston. 1965: Rhodesia declares independence. The US bombs North Vietnam. Britain appoints its first woman High Court judge.
1966: Swinging London revolves around Carnaby Street and Kings Road. England win the World Cup. Aberfan disaster in Wales. 1967: Abortion is legalised, as is homosexuality in England and Wales for men in private aged over 21.
1968: Enoch Powell makes his “rivers of blood” speech. The Ulster Troubles erupt with civil rights protests.
1969: The death penalty for murder is permanently abolished in Britain. British troops sent to Northern Ireland. American Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.
1971: British entry into EEC agreed. Decimalisation – a new decimalised currency is launched in the UK.
1972: The miners’ strike and power crisis. Bloody Sunday. The Duke of Windsor dies. The first home video game system is released.
1973: Britain joins the EEC. The Princess Royal marries Captain Mark Phillips.
1974: US President Richard Nixon resigns over the Watergate affair.
1975: Margaret Thatcher becomes Conservative Party leader. Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts. End of Vietnam War.
1976: Concorde begins commercial flights.
1977: Lib-lab pact. The Queen becomes a grandmother. Red Rum wins the Grand National for a record third time. 1978: Anna Ford becomes ITN’S first primetime woman newscaster. The world’s first test tube baby, Louise Brown, is born in Oldham. Winter of Discontent strikes.
1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first woman prime minister. Fall of the
Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Islamic revolutionaries come to power in Iran.
1980: The SAS storms the Iranian Embassy. Runners Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe win Olympic gold.
1981: Brixton riots. The Prince of Wales weds Lady Diana Spencer. The launch of the first space shuttle – Columbia.
1982: Falklands War. Intruder in Queen’s bedroom.. King Henry VIII’S Mary Rose is raised to the surface. Prince William is born. 1984: The IRA bombs the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Indira Gandhi is assassinated. Miners’ strikes. Prince Harry born.
1985: Heysel stadium riot kills 39. Live Aid concert held to raise money for Ethiopian famine.
1986: Chernobyl disaster 1987: Zeebrugge disaster. The IRA bombs Enniskillen’s Remembrance Day parade. Hungerford massacre. King’s Cross fire.
1988: Piper Alpha oil platform disaster. Lockerbie jumbo jet bombing.
1989: Hillsborough disaster. Berlin Wall falls. Tiananmen Square massacre. Tim Berners-lee invents the World Wide Web.
1990: Mrs Thatcher resigns after a leadership contest. Iraq invades Kuwait. Nelson Mandela is released from prison. Poll tax riots.
1991: The Allies launch Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War against Iraq. Mikhail Gorbachev resigns. 1992: The Queen’s “annus horribilis” – the Princess Royal