Early Modern
Monmouth Rebellion (1685): Sedgemoor and the Bloody Assizes
The rebel army was destroyed at Sedgemoor; Monmouth was beheaded and hundreds of his followers were executed or transported.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Newton's Principia (1687): Gravity and the Laws of Motion
Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation became the foundation of physics and astronomy for more than two centuries.
Early Modern
Nine Years' War (1688–1697): The Grand Alliance vs Louis XIV
A costly stalemate: by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) France kept Strasbourg but returned most other gains and recognised William III as king of England.
Early Modern
William Dampier in Australia (1688 and 1699): Buccaneer Explorer
Dampier became the first Englishman known to land on and describe the Australian mainland, and his books shaped British interest in the Pacific.
Early Modern
Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery (1688)
Quaker meetings declined to rule on the petition, but it became the earliest known written protest against slavery in English America.
Early Modern
Huguenot Settlers at the Cape (1688): French Refugees in Africa
About 200 French Protestant refugees settled at the Cape, quickly merged into the Dutch-speaking settler population and left a lasting mark on family names and farms.
Early Modern
Glorious Revolution (1688): William of Orange Takes the Throne
James II fled to France; Parliament offered the crown jointly to William and Mary with a Declaration of Right limiting royal power.
Early Modern
Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689): China and Russia Set a Border
Russia gave up the Amur valley and Albazin in return for regulated trade, and a border was fixed along the Argun River and the Stanovoy mountains.
Early Modern
John Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1689): Natural Rights
Locke's theory of natural rights, government by consent and the right of resistance became a cornerstone of liberal political thought.
Early Modern
Siege of Derry (1689): The Apprentice Boys and the Walled City
The Protestant garrison held out until relief ships broke the boom across the River Foyle; the Jacobite army withdrew.
Early Modern
English Bill of Rights (1689): Limits on the Power of the Crown
Parliament declared the illegality of key royal powers, guaranteed parliamentary rights and settled the crown on Protestant heirs.
Early Modern
Battle of the Boyne (1690): William III Defeats James II
Williamite victory; James II fled to France, Dublin fell to William, though the war in Ireland continued until 1691.