1828 Cambridge University Boat Club formed

1830 Coronation of William IV - Wellington in first term as Prime Minister - Stephenson's Rocket wins the Rainhill Trials

1834 Slavery abolished in the British Empire

1837 Queen Victoria ascends to the throne

1845 Fifth Boat Race, the first between Putney and Mortlake

1849 Two Boat Races held,Oxford win the second after Cambridge disqulaified

1854 Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War

1859 Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

1861 Start of the American Civil War - Prince Albert dies

1863 First section of the London Underground opens

1869 Oxford complete a 9 year winning streak

1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call

1877 The first Test Cricket Match held between England and Australia in Melbourne

1882 Oxford stroke Alfred Higgins becomes lightest ever Boat Race oarsman at 9st 6 1/2lbs

1887 The current Hammersmith Bridge opens

1890 Oxford win by 1 length and go on to win the next 8 races

1895 Barnes Railway Bridge is constructed

1898 Cambridge crew is waterlogged but manage to finish

1900 Cambridge win by 20 lengths

1902 End of the Boer War

1904 Cambridge bow man Stanley Melbourne goes on to become Australian Prime Minister in 1923

1911 Scott of the Antarctic's doomed expedition fails to reach the South Pole before Amundsen

1912 RMS Titanic sinks on her maiden voyage

1914 In the last race before 1920 Cambridge win by 4 1/4lengths

1917 Start of the Russian Revolution

1920 First Boat Race since 1914, won by Cambridge

1924 Cambridge start a sequence of 13 consecutive victories

1925 Oxford sink

1927 First BBC Radio commentary of the Boat Race

1929 Centenary of the Boat Race - won by 7 lengths by Cambridge

1930 First Football World Cup won by Uruguay

1934 Cambridge win in a record time of 18min 03sec

1938 First coverage of the Boat Race by BBC Television

1939 Last Boat Race until 1946, won by Cambridge

1940 Unofficial Boat Race held in Henley, other unofficial races held in 1943, 1944 and 1945

1946 Resumption of the official Boat Race, won by Oxford

1948 Summer Olympic Games held in London with rowing again in Henley

1949 First Boat Race to be televised in it's entirety, won by Cambridge

1951 Oxford sink and the race rescheduled, Cambridge still win

1952 Oxford win by a canvas...in a blizzard

1954 100th Boat Race, won by Oxford

1956 Suez Crisis

1959 Shortlived mutiny in the Oxford crew who go on to win by 6 lengths

1963 President Kennedy assasinated - Kenya gains independence from Britain

1965 Races start between Oxford & Cambridge reserve crews, Isis & Goldie

1968 Riots in Paris and anti-Vietnam War protests around the world

1971 Cambridge set a new course record of 17min 58sec and win by 10lengths

1974 Oxford set a new course record of 17min 35sec, winning by 5 1/2lengths

1976 Oxford become the first crew to go under 17mins setting a new record of 16min 58sec

1978 Cambridge sink in atrocious conditions

1980 Oxford cox Sue Brown becomes the first female to participate in the Boat Race

1983 Boris Rankov of Oxford becomes the first man to win six Boat Races

1984 Oxford win by 3 3/4lengths and set a new record of 16min 45sec

1986 Cambridge win for the first time since 1975

1989 Berlin Wall comes down - Tianamen Square protests in China

1992 Last Oxford win until 2000, following a series of 16 wins in 17 races

1996 First of the Veteran's Boat Races

1998 Cambridge set the current course record of 16min 19sec

2001 Race stopped and restarted near the Black Buoy, Cambridge go on to win

2003 Closest ever Boat Race as Oxford win by 1 foot

2007 Cambridge's Thorsten Englemann becomes the heaviest ever Boat Race oarsman at 17st 6lbs

2008 Mike Wherley of Oxford becomes the oldest Boat Race oarsman at the age of 36

1829 First Boat Race in Henley on Thames

1832 Cholera epidemic in London

1836 Second Boat Race, from Westminster to Putney

1839 OUBC founded - First Henley Regatta

1845 Start of the Great Irish Famine

1851 The Great Exhibition takes place in Hyde Park

1856 Beginning of the Boat Race as an annual event. Won by Cambridge in 25min 45sec

1859 Cambridge sink

1863 Final time the Boat Race is rowed on the ebb tide between Mortlake and Putney

1865 End of the American Civil War

1873 Cambridge win in a new record time of 19min 35sec. This is the first year both crews use sliding seats

1877 Oxford and Cambridge crews 'dead-heat' in the Boat Race

1878 Start of the First Boer War

1886 The current Putney Bridge opens

1889 The Eiffel Tower opens in Paris

1893 Oxford set a new course record of 18min 45sec

1897 Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee - Leander Club move from London to Henley

1899 Start of the Second Boer War

1901 Queen Victoria dies

1903 Wilbur Wright flies the first aircraft at Kittyhawk, North Carolina

1908 The forth modern Summer Olympic Games are held in London with rowing in Henley

1911 A new course record is set by Oxford of 18min 29sec

1912 Both crews sink and the race has to be rescheduled

1914 Assasination of Archduke Ferdinand and start of the First World War

1918 End of the First World War

1921 Establishment of the Irish Free State

1924 Ramsay Macdonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister

1926 General Strike in Britain

1927 Charles Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic

1929 Wall St.Crash and start of the Great Depression

1933 Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor in Germany - Chiswick Bridge completed

1936 Spanish Civil War begins

1938 Germany invades Czechoslovakia

1939 Start of the Second World War

1945 End of the Second World War - Churchill defeated in first post-war election by Attlee

1947 India gains independence from British rule

1949 The People's Republic of China is officially proclaimed - Flight of the world's first jet airliner, the de-Havilland Comet

1950 Start of the Korean War

1952 Queen Elizabeth II ascends to the throne

1953 End of Korean War - Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Mt. Everest

1954 Food rationing finally ends in Britain

1957 Sputnik 1 the world's first artificial orbiting satellite launched by the Soviet Union

1959 Start of the Vietnam War

1965 Death penalty abolished in Britain

1966 England win the Football World Cup

1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the Moon

1972 Masacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games

1975 End of the Vietnam War

1977 Ladbrokes become the first sponsors of the Boat Race

1979 Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minsiter - Ayatollah Khomeni seizes power in Iran

1982 The Falklands War

1984 Steve Redgrave wins the first of his 5 Olympic Gold Medals at the Los Angeles Games

1986 Space Shuttle Challeneger disintgrates shortly after take-off

1987 Mutiny in the Oxford camp, yet they still go on to win by 4 lengths

1991 End of the Cold War as the Soviet Union Collapses - First Gulf War

1994 First multi-racial elections in South Africa - Channel Tunnel opens

1997 Tony Blair becomes the first Labour Prime Minister since 1979

2001 Terrorists hijack aircraft and fly them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, New York

2003 Start of the Second Gulf War

2004 175th Anniversary of the Boat Race

2008 Barack Obama is elected as the 44th US President, the first of mixed-race parents