The great revolutions of history
From England's Glorious Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall: how over three centuries uprisings and upheavals changed rulers, borders and ideas about human rights.
The globe flies from place to place and the timeline from year to year. Every step has its own link — handy for showing it in class.
Tour steps
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1688 The Glorious Revolution
The English Parliament invites William of Orange, and King James II flees almost without a fight. The Bill of Rights limits royal power: England becomes a constitutional monarchy.
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1776 The American Revolution
Thirteen British colonies in North America declare independence. The Declaration states that all men are created equal and that government rests on the consent of the governed.
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1789 The French Revolution
On 14 July Parisians storm the Bastille. The Revolution proclaims the rights of man and of the citizen, abolishes the estates, executes the king and draws Europe into a quarter-century of war.
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1791–1804 The Haitian Revolution
The slaves of the French colony of Saint-Domingue rise up under Toussaint Louverture. In 1804 Haiti is born, the first country created by a successful slave revolt.
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1848 The Springtime of Nations
An uprising in Paris sets off a wave of revolutions across Europe, from France to the Austrian Empire. Nearly all are crushed, yet serfdom ends in Austria and the idea of national freedom can no longer be stopped.
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1910 The Mexican Revolution
A revolt against the dictator Porfirio Díaz grows into a decade of civil war fought by Madero, Zapata and Villa. It ends with a new constitution that gives land to the peasants.
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1911 The Xinhai Revolution
An uprising at Wuchang overthrows the Manchu Qing dynasty. More than two thousand years of imperial China come to an end, and China becomes a republic.
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1917 Revolution in Russia
In February Nicholas II abdicates; in October the Bolsheviks under Lenin seize power. The first socialist state is born, and its example splits the world in two for the rest of the 20th century.
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1959 The Cuban Revolution
The guerrillas of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrow the dictator Batista and enter Havana. Cuba becomes a Soviet ally ninety miles from the United States, three years before the Missile Crisis.
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1979 The Islamic Revolution
Mass protests drive out the Shah, and Ayatollah Khomeini proclaims the Islamic Republic of Iran. For the first time in the modern age a revolution brings the clergy to power.
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1989 The Autumn of Nations
The communist regimes of Eastern Europe fall one after another, almost everywhere without bloodshed, and the Berlin Wall comes down. Two years later the USSR itself breaks up, and the Cold War is over.