A History of the Whoniverse

The Eighteenth Century (1701-1800)

By the late 20th century, no documents from before 1700 existed at Boscombe Hall.

The Stones of Blood.

1701

Dr Thomas Borlase is born.

The Stones of Blood.

Unknown Dates in the 18th Century

Weed Creatures were seen in the North Sea. The Doctor ran Taunton for two weeks and claimed to have "never been so bored".

Fury from the Deep and The Highest Science page 208 respectively.

Aragon Court was constructed.

The building is early 18th Century and Queen Anne architecture. System Shock.

1712

The Doctor met the Duke of Marlborough.

The Android Invasion. The First Duke lived 1650-1722 and was made duke in 1702. The date is arbitrary.

Richard Cromwell dies as a hopeless failure.

According to The Roundheads page 140.

1713

The Nemesis Statue came near to Earth. It may have influenced France's Sun King towards a warlike foreign policy.

Silver Nemesis. The statue's effect is suggested in The Terrestrial Index.

29th December 1721

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, known as Reinette, is born. She would grow up to become Madame de Pompadour

She is seven the first time we see her in The Girl in the Fireplace. The year is stated on the portrait at the end and the exact date is historical, although it would make her first appearance at age six instead.

1726

Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift, is published.

Gulliver appears in The Mind Robber.

1727

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Reinette sees a man in her fireplace. Several months later, she meets this man, who saves her from a monster hiding under her bed.

Reinette gives the year. However, she says that she is seven, which would make it 1728. The second scene shows it snowing outside.

1730

The Aliens Act is passed.

The Highlanders.

A nice chap called Mr Chicken lives in number 10 Downing Street.

The Doctor dates this to 1730 in World War Three.

c. 1736

The Great Intelligence guides Padmasambhava to start constructing robotic Yeti in Tibet.

This was almost 200 years before The Abominable Snowmen.

1738

The Nemesis Statue again approached Earth. It may have heralded the Irish Potato Famine.

Silver Nemesis. The effect is suggested in The Terrestrial Index.

19th Century

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Reinette meets the "fireplace man" again.

The date of this segment is uncertain, Reinette has grown up, and it is clearly in sequence with her other appearances, but there is no real information to date it.

8^th September 1742

THE WITCH HUNTERS

The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan take a brief rest from their travels.

This is dated on page 263.

1743

Guiseppe Balsamo was born in Palermo. He would later become known as Cagliostro.

Managra.

1745

A Jacobite Rebellion battlefield was lifted by the War Lords.

The War Lords. The date of lifting is given by a Redcoat.

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson aspires to become King Louis XV's new mistress following the death of Madame de Chateauroux. She soon meets him and succeeds in her ambition.

We see her twice in this period, which the Doctor says happen when she was 23. The date is historical.

1746

16th April

Laird Colin McLaren gives his daughter Kirsty the ring of Bonnie Prince Charles Edward Stuart just before the battle of Culloden. The Battle of Culloden destroys Bonnie Prince Charlie's chances of taking the English throne.

THE HIGHLANDERS

A group of escaping Scottish soldiers from Culloden manages to escape being sold into slavery by crooked solicitor Grey. They take a captured slave ship to France, but Jamie McCrimmon joins the Doctor as he leaves.

THE WAR GAMES

Jamie is returned to his native time by the Time Lords. He has no memory of his time with the Doctor or of his gradual rejection of violent methods.

The Date is historical and given in The Underwater Menace. However, The Highlanders and The War Games suggest 1745.

1747

The last beheading on Tower Hill takes place. A block is made for this execution.

According to The Dying Days chapter 14 page 11.

Jared Khan, known as Thomas, narrowly missed acquiring the TARDIS. He then posed as Alessandro di Cagilostro, claiming a lifespan of 1743-1795.

Birthright.

The Dæmons claim to have inspired the Industrial Revolution.

The Dæmons.

The farmhouse that would later become the Dalesview Residential Home is built.

According to Nightshade page 13, it is an 18^th century building.

1750

A ship is wrecked off Haiti. Nkome, a six year old African slave, is washed ashore, kept alive by Voodoo. He starts to plan his revenge.

White Darkness.

1754

Dr. Thomas Borlaseis is crushed to death by a standing [well, falling] stone whilst surveying the stone circle known as the Nine Travellers.

The Stones of Blood.

The Doctor discovers Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart half dead on a slaver off Sierra Leone. He takes her to the People far in the future.

The Also People.

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Reinette meets two of the Doctor's friends, and Rose explains the danger she is due to face in five years time. Reinette also visits a spacecraft from the future.

She is five years away from being thirty seven.

1759

Robert Burns is born.

The Underwater Menace.

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Masked men menace courtiers at a masked ball at the Palace of Versailles. They surround Madame de Pompadour, until a man crashes into the palace through a mirror, reveals them to be clockwork men, and talks them into submission. The man then disappears.

Reinette is thirty seven.

c. 1760

High Wycombe was founded.

According to K9 in More Short Trips: Return of the Spiders.

1763

The Nemesis Statue again came near Earth, possibly helping cause a Russo-Turkish war.

Silver Nemesis. The effect is suggested in The Terrestrial Index.

1764

SHORT TRIPS: OLD FLAMES

The Doctor, Sarah, Iris Wildthyme and "Captain Turner" attend a high society ball at Lady Huntingdon's. Later that night, Rector Adams is killed on his way home from the ball. Lady Huntingdon disappears soon afterwards, leaving the estate to her granddaughter Bella and Captain Turner.

Turner tells Sarah the year on page 21. It is winter on page 37.

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

Madame de Pompadour dies, leaving a note for the man in the fireplace.

The Doctor arrives just as her coffin is leaving Versailles. The year is stated on her portrait.

1765

Scaroth's eleventh segment lived in France during the reign of Louis XV. He acquired a Gainsborough.

City of Death. I'm unsure of the dates for Louis XV, but Gainsborough lived 1727-88

Gainsborough painted a picture of Ace [presumably after she left the Doctor in Set Piece].

The portrait comes from the extended version of Silver Nemesis and is mentioned in Set Piece. Gainsborough did society portraits 1760-74.

Auderley House was built in Georgian times.

Day of the Daleks.

16th December 1770

SHORT TRIPS AND SIDE STEPS: GONE TOO SOON

The Sixth Doctor gives Ludwig van Beethoven's mother money to persuade his father to keep him.

The year is given on page 177. The exact date is a matter of historical record.

1772

The Third Lord of Aldbourne is revealed to practice black magic rituals. The scandal brings Devil's End into the public eye.

The Dæmons.

Cessair of Diplos posed as Lady Montcalm and was painted by Allan Ramsey

The Stones of Blood. Ramsey lived 1713-84.

16th December 1773

In the American city of Boston, a group of colonists protest at the Tea Act by dumping tea from a ship in the harbour. One of the protesters might have been the Doctor.

He claims to have pushed boxes into the sea at the Boston Tea Party in The Unquiet Dead, all the other details, including the date, are historical.

1776

The uniform Captain Turner wore at a ball twelve years earlier comes into use at his rank.

Twelve years after Short Trips: Old Flames.

Thomas Paine publishes The American Crisis.

There's a quote from it in War of the Daleks (page 21).

27th June 1776

Old Josh (as he would become known) is born.

A week before the US Declaration of independence according to Short Trips and Side Steps: A Town Called Eternity.

1778

The Rani stole brain fluid during the American war of Independence.

Mark of the Rani. The war ran from 1775-1783. The exact date is arbitrary.

1783

The first Doctor met James Watt.

The Space Museum. Watt lived 1736-1819. The exact date is arbitrary.

Mr Redpath's grandmother is born.

She was 86 before she died, according to Mr Sneed in The Unquiet Dead

1788

The Nemesis statue again came close to Earth, possibly influencing the French Revolution. At the same time, the Nemesis bow was stolen from Windsor Castle.

Silver Nemesis. The effect is suggested in The Terrestrial Index.

George Gordon Byron is born.

Managra.

The French Revolution

1789

July 14th

A Parisian mob storms the Bastille prison, one of the first events in the French Revolution.

The Reign of Terror.

Susan and the First Doctor visited the French Revolution in their first ever visit to Earth. It taught the Doctor that [some] people wanted freedom and a hope for the future as well as that the old order could be toppled. This is [one of] the Doctor's favourite period[s] in history. The Doctor also obtained a lockpick from Marie Antoinette.

The visit to the French Revolution is mentioned in 100,000 BC and The Reign of Terror, in which the Doctor says it is his favourite period of Earth history. I would guess that he later preferred the late 20th century. The fact that it was his first visit, and what it taught him, is mentioned in Just War. The lockpick is mentioned in The Robots of Death and Pyramids of Mars.

1791

THE CRYSTAL BUCEPHALUS

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are dining at the Café de Saint Joseph in Aix-en-Provence when they are scooped up by the Crystal Bucephalus and whisked about 9,000 years into the future.

The date is given on page 20.

1792

Peter Shelley is born.

Managra.

1793

Sir Percival Flint attempts to excavate Devil's Hump, but fails when his workers flee in terror.

The Dæmons.

October 31st

Maxmilien Robespierre orders the Girondist revolutionaries executed.

The Reign of Terror.

Missus Bellaver is born.

She died recently aged 87, according to Evolution (page 91).

1794

April 5th

Robespierre has the revolutionary Georges Danton executed.

The Reign of Terror.

May

Leon Colbert's cell of revolutionaries finds out about British spy James Stirling.

Two months before The Reign of Terror.

July

THE REIGN OF TERROR

The First Doctor, Susan, Ian & Barbara are caught up in events around the Concierge prison and report to spy James Stirling of a potential coup by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The date is given on screen.

1796

A room in 10 Downing Street is first used as the cabinet room. It will continue being used for this purpose until 2006.

According to the Doctor in World War Three

The Doctor claimed to have been a close personal friend of Nelson.

The Sea Devils. Nelson lived 1758-1805.

1798

SET PIECE

Benny visited Egypt in the company of French archaeologist Vivant Denon

The date is on page 57. It is probably late October or early November. The year of Napoleon's archaeological team's vist to Egypt is mentioned in The Sands of Time on page 134 (instalment 5, page 19).

Napoleon's troops use the Great Sphinx for target practice, destroying its face.

Peri says that this happened 3,000 years after The Eye of the Scorpion (in episode 4).

THE SANDS OF TIME

Napoleon Bonaparte visits the Great Pyramid. He goes to the central chamber, and stays a long time. He tells his friend Jean Tombier, the only other person who was there, to say that he spent merely a few moments in the chamber.

The date is given on page 203 (instalment 8, page 1).

c. 1800

The Reeve of Excelis commissions volunteer citizens to become wardens - responsible for policing the city. One of the initial batch of wardens is Grayvorn, though he calls himself Maupassant. Maupassant would eventually rise through the ranks to become Reeve himself.

According to the curator, this was 200 years before Excelis Rising