2004 Opening of the new Scottish Parliament Building

Before 1707, the Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign independent state which had its own legislature - the Parliament of Scotland - which met, latterly, at Parliament House on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The Act of Union, passed in 1707, created an incorporating political union between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England. The Union merged the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England into the Parliament of Great Britain which was housed in the Palace of Westminster in London. As a consequence, Scotland was directly governed from London for the next 292 years without a legislature or a Parliament building of its own. The formal opening by Queen Elizabeth took place on 9 October 2004. Enric Miralles, the Catalan architect who designed the building, died before its completion.

1996 The Stone of Destiny

The Stone of Scone - also known as the Stone of Destiny, and often referred to in England as The Coronation Stone - is an oblong block (152 kg) of red sandstone that was used for centuries in the coronation of the monarchs of Scotland, and later the monarchs of England and the Kingdom of Great Britain. Historically, the artefact was kept at the now-ruined Scone Abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob's Pillow Stone and the Tanist Stone. The Stone of Scone was last used in 1953 for the coronation of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

1957 Scottish Television

Scottish Television (known as STV Central Ltd and referred to on-air as STV) is Scotland's largest ITV franchisee. It is the second oldest ITV franchisee still active (Granada Television being the oldest). Along with STV North and ITV Tyne Tees & Border, STV Central is a commercial rival to the publicly funded national broadcaster, BBC Scotland, and is based alongside its studios at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. STV were awarded local TV licenses in 2013 to operate two digital television channels for up to 12 years. STV Glasgow launched in 2014 with an expanded schedule of local news, features and entertainment programming. STV Edinburgh is due to launch later in the year. Existing regional news bulletins continue to air on the main STV Central service.

1947 Edinburgh International Festival

The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual festival of performing arts in Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music (especially classical music), theatre, opera and dance from around the world to perform. The idea of creating an international festival within the UK was first conceived by Rudolf Bing, the General Manager of Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and Audrey Mildmay (wife of John Christie) during a wartime tour of a small-scale Glyndebourne production of The Beggar's Opera.

1934 Scottish National Party founded

The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social-democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP was formed through the merger of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party. It is the third largest political party by membership in the United Kingdom, behind the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence. The party has an active youth wing, the Young Scots for Independence, as well as a student wing, the Federation of Student Nationalists. There is also an SNP Trade Union Group. There is an independently-owned monthly newspaper, The Scots Independent, which is highly supportive of the party.

1896 Opening of the Glasgow Subway

The Glasgow Subway is an underground metro line in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the third-oldest underground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro. It is the only heavy rail underground metro system in the British Isles outside London, and also the only one outside London which operates completely underground. The line was originally known as the Glasgow District Subway. Formerly a cable railway, the Subway was later electrified, but its twin circular lines were never expanded.

1879 Tay Bridge disaster

The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent storm when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed while a train was passing over it from Wormit to Dundee, killing all aboard. The bridge – designed by Sir Thomas Bouch – used lattice girders supported by iron piers, with cast iron columns and wrought iron cross-bracing. Bouch had sought expert advice on "wind loading" when designing a proposed rail bridge over the Firth of Forth; as a result of that advice he had made no explicit allowance for wind loading in the design of the Tay Bridge. He died within the year, with his reputation as an engineer ruined. Bouch's design for the Forth Rail Bridge was not used.

1864 James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1831 - 1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist. His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics" after the first one realized by Isaac Newton. Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light (A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field in 1865). The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves.

1846 Highland Potato Famine

The Highland Potato Famine was a famine caused by potato blight that struck the Scottish Highlands. While the mortality rate was less than other Scottish famines in the 1690s, and 1780, the Highland potato famine caused over 1.7 million people to leave Scotland during the period 1846 - 52. Famine was a real prospect throughout the period, and certainly it was one of severe malnutrition, serious disease, crippling financial hardship and traumatic disruption to essentially agrarian communities. The causes of the crisis were similar to those of the Great Irish Famine and both famines were part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe.

1804 The Glasgow Herald newspaper

The Herald is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. It is said to be the longest running national newspaper in the world and the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. It is printed at Cambuslang, just outside Glasgow. The newspaper was founded by John Mennons as a weekly publication called the Advertiser. Mennons left the newspaper in 1802. The new owners changed the name to The Herald and Advertiser and Commercial Chronicle in 1803 and to The Glasgow Herald in 1804. It became the Glasgow Herald in 1834 and began daily publication in 1858.

1769 James Watt

James Watt (1736 - 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775. The new firm of Boulton and Watt was eventually highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man. Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work. He developed the concept of horsepower and the SI unit of power, the watt, was named after him. 

1754 Joseph Black discovers "fixed air" - carbon dioxide

Joseph Black (1728 - 1799) was born in Bordeaux, France, where his father, who was from Belfast, Ireland, was engaged in the wine trade. His mother was from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and her family was also in the wine business. Joseph had twelve brothers and sisters. He was a Scottish physician and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO₂). He was Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry at the University of Glasgow for 10 years from 1756, and then Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1766, teaching and lecturing there for more than 30 years. The chemistry buildings at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow are named after Black.

1715 Jacobite risings

The Jacobite risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings had the aim of returning James VII of Scotland and II of England to the throne of Great Britain after they had been deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobitism, from Jacobus, the Latin form of James. The "first Jacobite rebellion" and "second Jacobite rebellion" were known respectively as "the Fifteen" and "the Forty-five", after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745). The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

1695 The Bank of Scotland created by Act of Parliament

The Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland was established by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland on 17 July 1695, the Act for erecting a Bank in Scotland, opening for business in February 1696. The Bank of Scotland plc is a commercial and clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a history dating to the 17th century, it is the second oldest surviving bank in the United Kingdom (the Bank of England having been established one year before), and is the only commercial institution created by the Parliament of Scotland to remain in existence. It was also the first bank in Europe to print its own banknotes; it continues to print its own sterling banknotes under legal arrangements which allow Scottish banks to issue currency.

1654 Oliver Cromwell the Protector of England Ireland and Scotland

Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658) was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. After undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, he became an independent puritan. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the "Roundheads" or Parliamentarians. Nicknamed "Old Ironsides", he was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to become one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and, as a member of the Rump Parliament (1649–53), he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England. 

1642 First English Civil War

The First English Civil War (1642 - 1646) began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War (it was in fact very much a British war). "The English Civil War" (1642–51 refers collectively to the civil wars in England and the Scottish Civil War) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists, and includes the Second English Civil War (1648–1649) and the Third English Civil War (1649–1651). It began with the raising of King Charles I's standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, and ended on 3 September 1651 at the Battle of Worcester.

1638 Scottish Covenanters rebel against Charles I

The Covenanters were a Scottish Presbyterian movement that played an important part in the history of Scotland. They derive their name from the term "covenant" after the covenant sworn by Israel in the Old Testament. There were two important covenants in Scottish history, the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant. The covenant of 1581, drawn up by John Craig in consequence of the strenuous efforts Roman Catholics were making to regain their hold upon Scotland, and called the King's Confession or National Covenant. The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians in 1643 during the First English Civil War.

1614 John Napier invents logarithms

John Napier of Merchiston (1550 - 1617) named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. John Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He also invented the so-called "Napier's bones" (manually-operated calculating device for calculation of products and quotients of numbers) and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. Napier's birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University. After his death from the effects of gout, Napier's remains were buried in St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh.

1592 James VI enacts the "Golden Act"

James VI and I (1566 - 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1603 until his death. The Golden Act of 1592 gave parliamentary approval to Presbyterian courts. James VI believed that Presbyterianism was incompatible with monarchy, declaring "No bishop, no king" and by skillful manipulation of both church and state, steadily reintroduced parliamentary and then diocesan episcopacy. By the time he died in 1625, the Church of Scotland had a full panel of bishops and archbishops. General Assemblies met only at times and places approved by the Crown.

1559 John Knox promotes Calvinism

John Knox (1514 - 1572) was a Scottish clergyman and writer who was a leader of the Protestant Reformation and is considered the founder of the Presbyterian denomination in Scotland. Influenced by early church reformers such as George Wishart, he joined the movement to reform the Scottish church. In Geneva he met John Calvin, from whom he gained experience and knowledge of Reformed theology and Presbyterian polity. He created a new order of service, which was eventually adopted by the reformed church in Scotland.