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  1. Home
  2. On This Day
  3. May
  4. 1
  5. Queen Victoria

Events on May 1 in history

Queen Victoria
1851May, 1

Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Though a constitutional monarch, Victoria privately attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

References

  • Queen Victoria
  • The Great Exhibition
  • The Crystal Palace

Choose Another Date

Events on 1851

  • 12Feb

    Australian gold rushes

    Edward Hargraves announces he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rushes.
  • 21May

    Colombia

    Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.
  • 5Jun

    Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
  • 12Aug

    Sewing machine

    Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
  • 24Oct

    Umbriel (moon)

    William Lassell discovers the moons Umbriel, and Ariel, orbiting Uranus.

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