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Princess Katherine Plantagenet born deaf, dies at ages of 3.
1428-1486
Princess Joanna of Scotland - reported to have communicated using sign language interpreters.
1450
Publication of the History of the Syon Monastery at Lisbon and Brentford. Contains descriptions of signs some, of which are still in use.
1576
Earliest documented use of sign language in the registry records at St. Martin's Church, Leicester, of a marriage ceremony between Thomas Tilsye and Ursula Russel.
1595
Eye-witness accounts of the life of Edward Bone, a Deaf manservant, including how he communicated with Deaf friends and hearing people.
1620-1671
Sir Edward Gostwicke is recorded by the Archdeacon of Bedford and a suitor, Dorothy Osborne, as a user of "signes and tokens".
Sir John Gaudy (1639-1708) and Framlingham Gaudy (1642-1673) are the first Deaf people in the UK reported to have been educated using the manual alphabet and signs.
1648
Publication of John Bulwer's Philocophus: Or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friende
Alexander Popham (1649-1708) is the first Deaf person in the UK recorded to have been taught by oral methods (although he was first taught with fingerspelling).
1680
Publication of George Dalgarno's Didascalocophus, Or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, containing a 2-handed manual alphabet.
1698
Publication of Digiti Lingua, by an anonymous Deaf author, containing manual alphabet charts that laid the foundation for the British Sign Language two-handed alphabet.
1720
Publication of Daniel Defoe's The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell, Deaf and Dumb, containing a manual alphabet chart which closely resembles modern British Sign Language two-handed fingerspelling.
1760
Opening of Thomas Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf in Edinburgh, the first school for the Deaf, which saw the education of many famous Deaf sign language users.
1783
Publication of Francis Green's Vox Oculis Subjecta, about the education of an American boy at Braidwood's school and the use of his sign language.
The first adult Deaf society is established in Glasgow by the then headmaster of the Glasgow Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.
1844-1925
Alexandra, Princess of Wales and later the Queen, is Britain's best known Deaf Royal. She was taught fingerspelling and regularly attended Deaf services at St. Saviour's Church, London.
1866
Charles Dicken's Doctor Marigold's Prescription is published - a story about a Deaf girl brought up using signing, who marries a Deaf man and has a hearing child.
1880
The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf, held in Milan, infamously passes several resolutions declaring that sign language was inferior to Oralism, and ought to be banned. This leads to the widespread suppression of sign language in many Deaf schools throughout the world.
1890
The British Deaf and Dumb Association is founded in response to the influence of the Milan Congress resolutions.
1893
The Elementary Education (Deaf and Blind Children) Act is passed. This accepted, in full, the recommendations of the Milan Congress, leading to an era of Oralism in British Deaf schools.
1895
The Guide to Chirology pamphlets are first published by Harry Ash (1863-1934). These ran through until 1920.
1911
The forerunner of the current Action on Hearing Loss organisation (RNID) is launched.
1924
The first World Games for the Deaf (now Deaflympics) are held in Paris.
1944
The National Deaf Children's Society is formed, coinciding with a new Education Act.
1964
The first public demonstration of a TTY (known in Britain as a Minicom).
1971
The British Deaf and Dumb Association re-brands itself as the British Deaf Association (BDA).
1975
The first documented reference to British Sign Language as the name of the language of Britain's Deaf Community (Brennan 1975, in American Annals of the Deaf).
1976
The National Union for the Deaf is formed by a group of radical Deaf people impatient with the lack of progress made by other deaf organisations. One of its key successes is laying the foundations of the BBC See Hear television series.
1977
The organisation that grew into today's Signature is established, as the DHSS Communication Skills Project.
1977-1979
Research projects into British Sign Language are set up in Moray House (University of Edinburgh), the Centre for Deaf Studies (University of Bristol) and the Sign Language Linguistics Group (University of Newcastle).
1979
The Warnock Report was published, advocating the integration of Deaf and disabled children into mainstream education. This eventually led to the closure of many residential schools for the Deaf.
1985
The International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, held in Manchester, saw what Deaf historians regard as the 'true birth' of the campaign for the use and the recognition of British Sign Language. Deaf delegates and international Deaf groups abandon the Congress and join to organise an 'Alternative Conference' at Manchester's Deaf Centre.
1990
Deaf Studies programmes are established at the University of Central Lancashire (Preston) and University of Wolverhampton to encourage people to obtain degrees in British Sign Language related subjects.
1995
Bencie Woll becomes the first Professor of Sign Language and Deaf Studies in the UK, at City University London
1995
The Disability Discrimination Act is passed.
1999
Rachel Sutton-Spence and Bencie Woll publish Linguistics of British Sign Language, still regarded as the definitive work on British Sign Language Linguistics.
1999
The first British Sign Language march of the Campaign for the Recognition of BSL takes place in London.
DCAL (the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre) is established in University College London.
2010
The 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, held in Vancouver, Canada passes a resounding resolution that rejects the motions passed back in Milan in 1880.
