Timeline

1846 Beginning of Europe's last major food crisis and famine throughout the Continent.

1848 Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto .

February 24, 1848 Revolution in France; overthrow of the monarchy of King Louis-Philippe; proclamation of the creation of the French Second Republic.

March 1848 Uprisings in some German states; granting of constitutional reforms in Prussia.

March 1848-June 1849 Revolutions in Italy.

April 1848 Revolutions in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

May 1848 Frankfurt Assembly meets and proposes a plan for the unification of Germany; Prussian king refuses to take the crown.

December 1848 Louis Napoleon wins presidential election in France.

1853-1856 Crimean War.

1859 Austria declares war on the Kingdom of Sardinia, allied with France.

1859 Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection .

1860 Sardinia annexes provinces in central Italy after plebiscites; France receives Savoy and Nice.

March 3, 1861 Emancipation of Russian serfs.

March 14, 1861 Kingdom of Italy proclaimed with King Victor Immanuel II as king.

1861-1865 American Civil War.

1863 Maximilian crowned emperor of Mexico; Prussia and Austria at war with Denmark over Schleiswig and Holstein.

1866 Seven Weeks' War between Prussia and Austria; Italy acquires Venetia.

1867 Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital .

July-September 1870 Franco-Prussian War ends with capitulation of French Second Empire.

September 20, 1870 Italy annexes Rome.

January 18, 1871 German Empire proclaimed.