The first fuchsia plants arrive in Europe from Peru in 1788.

Chrysanthemums from the Orient come over the following year.

Inx1789 the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin is completed by the

German architect Carl Langhans (1732-1808), modelled on the

Propylaea, the entrance gateway to the Acropolis in Athens.

Acknowledgement

White House: sketch by the American amateur architect Samuel Blodget Jr. (1757-1814), c1800. Considered to be in the public domain – http://mrstoneshistory.wikispaces.com

G3b-1783-1802-G3b-1783-1802-G3b-1783-1802-G3b-1783-1802-G3b-1783-1802-G3b

In 1785 the English physician William Withering (1741-1799) gives an account of the medical uses of digitalis, made from the dried leaves of the common foxglove.

A collection of amusing far-fetched tales is published in 1785.

Written by the German Rudolp Raspe (1736-1794), it tells of

Baron Munchausen’s Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia.

The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is established in London in

1787 with its headquarters at Lord’s Cricket Ground (named after

its founder Thomas Lord). It begins to set out the laws of cricket.

1790 The French adopt the decimal system of weights and measures.

The first machine able to produce a continuous sheet of paper is invented by the French mill-owner Louis Robert (1761-1828) in 1798. It is improved 6 years later by the English engineer and inventor Bryan Donkin (1768-1855).

In 1792 the United States adopts the dollar as its unit of currency. The name

derives from the German silver coin the taler (via daler and dalar), first struck

in 1519. Five years later (1797) the first copper pennies are minted in Britain.

1744, is played at Princeton College, New Jersey in 1786

However, some claim that a General Abner Doubleday

invented the game at Cooperstown, NY, in 1839!

Onexof the first games of

, described as early as

Inx1788 the London newspaper The Daily Universal Register, founded by John Walter in 1785, is

, and earns the title “The Thunderer”. The Observer is founded 3 years later.

renamed

The Times

1792 The French engineer Claude Chappe (1763-1805) invents a mechanical method to send messages by means of semaphore (Greek for “bearing a sign”). For this purpose 32 towers are built between Paris and Lille.

begins to put an end to powdered hair.

1795 A tax on

powder

1799

In Britain

Income Tax

is introduced.

It is later removed (1816)

but re-imposed in 1842!

whilst in France the

metric system

is adopted.

1801 The Union Jack becomes the official flag of the United Kingdom and the first population census is held in Great Britain and France.

In 1802 the German chemist Franz Achard

(1753-1821) opens the first factory to manufacture

sugar beet from beetroot. The results were not

encouraging, however, and it was ten years before

the industry was successfully established, this time

in France with the support of Napoleon.

In Washington, work is completed on the “executive mansion”,

The White House, in 1800, but building continues on the Capitol, the meeting place of the U.S. Congress. Both are badly damaged in the War of 1812.

Lionel Lukin (1742-1834), an English coachmaker, makes the first “unsinkable” lifeboat. He also invented an adjustable reclining bed.

1785