5540–5610 AM · 1780 CE — 1850 CE · world history
The Industrial Revolution
The steam engine, the factory and the railway transform labour, cities and time itself.
First in Britain, then across Europe, coal replaces muscle, water and wind. Spinning machines, Watt's steam engine, iron bridges and, from the 1830s, railways let ordinary people travel faster than a horse. Villages empty, factory towns swell with slums and child labour, and labour movements are born.
Sources
Documents of the period
- documents and chronicles of the period — the patents (Watt’s engine), factory reports, and parliamentary inquiries into working conditions
Scholarship
- studies in European history — urbanisation, child labour, and the birth of the labour movement
Basis: documents and evidence.