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Approximate Beginning of Putting-Out System
This is the approximate beginning of the putting-out system and the cottage industry, which began the Industrious Revolution, bringing both social and economic change. This represented a relatively unregulated system of producing house-manufactured goods by cottage workers and selling them to capitalist merchants who would in turn lend the workers raw materials. This pushed people of lower classes, women and children included, into wage labor on a large scale for the first time. -
Navigation Act
Great Britain passed a series of Navigation Acts, requiring that goods produced by the American colonies could only be shipped on British ships, thereby limiting American trading partners. This represents an economic change, as Great Britain ended its policy of salutary neglect and began exercising stricter control over the colonies. This represents a social/political change however, as Great Britain begins to emerge as a major European power. -
Height of Guild System
This year saw a drastic increase in the number of urban guilds in Paris, demonstrating their popularity and effectiveness at producing wages for large amounts of workers. Given that guilds existed in times just before the Middle Ages and continued throughout Medieval Times, this height in guild number and membership represents an economic continuity. However, soon the popularity of the putting out system will undermine guilds both socially and economically. -
Mughal Empire Concedes Trade Priveledges
In this year, the powerful Mughal empire began to decline. Because of this, great economic change ensued. As they gave up their trading privileges, the British East India Company took advantage of what they could, contributing to the development of Great Britain as a major empire and both a European and world power. -
Last Major Plague Outbreak
The last major outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, which had previously devastated Europe, occurred early in the 18th century. This serves as the basis for the Agricultural Revolution because it allows for an intense burst in population, allowing for more laborers to produce agricultural output in Europe. It also serves as a social change by allowing for the growth of more extended families with a dramatic reduction in death rates across the continent. -
Height of Transatlantic Slave Trade
This event demonstrates a slight economic change because it portrays the sense that plantations in the Americas were becoming more prosperous in producing an income for their mother countries, and therefore more slave labor was needed to further stimulate and support production. This represents a social continuity from the ideas concerning a racial hierarchy beginning with some of the Enlightenment philosophies. The change came when race was used as justification to exploit African laborers. -
Start of Seven Years' War
Often times referred to as the first "world" war, this conflict between several European powers and Great Britain's North American colonial holdings, changed the divisions in territory among the European nations who had colonial possessions. This is an economic change because the end of this war also ended salutary neglect completely. Great Britain starts to become an extremely wealthy nation with a vast empire, and the colonists faced increasing restriction. -
Publication of The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations prompted economic change in Europe as it laid out the groundwork for modern economic theory. This book also prompted some elements of social change through the economy, as Smith suggested that through free competition in an economic market, people from all walks of life could advance their position in society. He also criticized guilds and state-sponsored monopolies, undermining systems that had been in place since medieval times. -
General Enclosure Act
In this year, British Parliament passed a general enclosure act that enabled enclosing of land anywhere in any village. This demonstrates an economic change from the open-field system and the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution, allowing for more plentiful harvests and putting an end to long-suffered famines and food shortages. However, this also presents a social continuity with the low status of peasants, who did not like the enclosure system due to uneven land distribution. -
British Slave Trade Abolished
This is a significant social change in Europe. After exploiting African slave laborers for over a century and profiting tremendously over the transatlantic slave trade, Parliament outlaws the shipping of slaves for use by Great Britain. Although Americans were now independent and continued to use slave labor, this is an early first step toward the eventual outlawing of slavery as a whole, making it the basis for an extreme social change.
