The timeline of the German Empire is a chronological list of the major political events of the German Empire, beginning in 1815 with an overview of the predecessor states that led to the German unification of 1871 and ending on 9 November 1918, the day the German Republic was proclaimed in Berlin.
Predecessor states: German Confederation (1815–1866) and North German Confederation (1866–1871)
1815
9 June: The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna created the German Confederation of 39 states from the territories of the former Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had been abolished in 1806. 10 June: The Constitution of the German Confederation, dated 8 June 1815, was formally signed at the Congress of Vienna.
1834 1 January: The German Customs Union (), which was independent of the German Confederation, came into effect. It created a free-trade zone that initially included eighteen states and was an early step towards the unification of Germany.
1848 27 February: Triggered by the overthrow of King Louis Philippe of France, the ultimately unsuccessful German revolutions of 1848–1849 began. 18 May: The Frankfurt National Assembly, elected to create a united Germany and write a constitution for it, opened its first session in St. Paul's Church.
1850 29 November: In the Punctation of Olmütz, the Kingdom of Prussia abandoned its plans to create a German federation under Prussia's leadership without the inclusion of the Austrian Empire, and agreement was reached to revive the German Confederation, which included Austria.
1851 30 May: The Federal Convention, the deliberating body of the German Confederation, was re-established following the collapse of the 1848 revolution and the revival of the Confederation.
1866
14 June: The Austro-Prussian War began. Prussia under Otto von Bismarck used the situation in Schleswig-Holstein as a pretext to challenge Austria for the leadership of the Confederation. 3 July: In the Battle of Königgrätz, Prussia resoundingly defeated the Austrian side. 18 August: The North German Confederation Treaty was signed in Berlin. It bound the parties into a military alliance and to an agreement to negotiate the creation of a formal federation. 23 August: The Treaty of Prague formally ended the Austro-Prussian War. Prussia gained new territory, and the "German question" of a greater or lesser Germany (i.e. with or without Austria) was settled in favor of the latter.
1867 1 July: The North German Constitution, which had been approved by the Reichstag on 16 April, came into effect and formally established the 22-state North German Confederation.
1870 19 July: The Franco-Prussian War began when France declared war on Prussia. 1–2 September: In the Battle of Sedan, Emperor Napoleon III of France and 103,000 of his troops were captured. Even though the French Second Empire fell, the war continued under the Third Republic. 9 December: The Reichstag approved the Constitution of the German Confederation (1871). It was based largely on the Constitution of the North German Confederation with the addition of agreements (the November Treaties) between it and the south German states that later joined the Empire. 10 December: The North German Confederation renamed itself the German Empire.
German Empire 1871
1 January: The interim Constitution of the German Confederation (1871), which had been approved by the North German Reichstag on 9 December 1870, came into effect. 18 January: The German Empire was proclaimed at a ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, was proclaimed Kaiser. 28 January: The German siege of Paris, the last battle of the Franco-Prussian War, ended with the capitulation of the city. The Armistice of Versailles signed the same day formally ended the fighting. 26 February: The preliminary Treaty of Versailles (1871) between France and the German Empire was signed. 3 March: The first election for the Reichstag of the German Empire took place under universal manhood suffrage. The National Liberals won the largest number of seats (117 out of 382). 21 March: The new Reichstag, with Otto von Bismarck as chancellor, held its first session in the Prussian House of Lords building in Berlin.
16 April: Kaiser Wilhelm I signed the new Constitution of the German Empire which the Reichstag had approved overwhelmingly two days earlier. It came into effect on 4 May. 10 May: France and Germany signed the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War. Among other requirements, France ceded Alsace–Lorraine and agreed to pay an indemnity of five billion gold francs. 8 July: The ('cultural struggle') against the Catholic Church began when the Catholic and Evangelical bureaus within the Prussian Ministry of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs were merged. 10 December: In a continuation of the , the Reichstag passed the Pulpit Law. It made it illegal for a clergyman to make public statements which would "endanger the public peace".
1872 11 March: The Prussian School Inspection Law replaced church oversight of the Prussian school system (both Catholic and Protestant schools) with state supervision (part of the ). 4 July: The Jesuit Law prohibited the activities of the Jesuit Order on German soil.
1873 15 October: The Panic of 1873 reached Germany with the collapse of the Quistorp Bank. It was followed by a wave of bankruptcies and an unprecedented fall in stock prices. It was not until 1880 that Germany began a slow return to growth. 11–14 May: As part of the , the four Falk Laws (also known as the "May Laws") were passed by the Prussian parliament. They enacted state controls over religious training and ecclesiastical appointments. 22 October: The Three Emperors League () between the emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary was created. Through it Bismarck sought to isolate France diplomatically, specifically by preventing it from making an alliance with Russia.
1874 1 January: The Constitution of the German Empire went into effect in the Reichsland Alsace–Lorraine, making its status similar to that of the Prussian provinces in their relation to the Kingdom of Prussia. 10 January: The Empire held its second Reichstag election. The National Liberals again won the most seats (147 of 397), although the Catholic Centre Party with only 91 seats had a higher percentage of the total votes (28% vs. 27%). 9 March: In the , civil marriage became mandatory in Prussia. 13 July: An attempt to assassinate Chancellor Bismarck was made by a young Catholic who wanted to end the . The incident, which left Bismarck with a wound in the hand, stoked anti-Catholic sentiment.
1875
5 February: Pope Pius IX declared the Falk Laws of 1873 void. 6 February: Civil marriage was made mandatory in all of Germany, extending the law of 9 March 1874 which affected Prussia only. 8 April: The war-in-sight crisis, sparked by an editorial of that name in the Berlin newspaper Die Post, temporarily heightened tensions between Germany and France by bringing up the possibility of a German preventative war against France. Bismarck was thought to be behind the article. 22 April: All state subsidies to Prussian Catholic dioceses and clergy were stopped (the so-called ('breadbasket law'). 22–27 May: At the Gotha Congress, the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) founded by Ferdinand Lassalle combined with the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) founded by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht to form the (SAP). In 1890 the SAP became the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). 31 May: The continued with the closure of all monasteries in Prussia and the expulsion of members of religious orders from the state.
1876 15 February: The was founded. In view of the ongoing repercussions of the Panic of 1873, it advocated the introduction of protective tariffs. 30 March: The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP) was banned in Prussia. 7 June: The German Conservative Party was founded. It represented primarily the wealthy landowning German nobility, including the Prussian Junker class.
1877 10 January: The third Reichstag election changed little in the party makeup in parliament. The National Liberals and Centre Party were again in first and second place. 15 June: In the Kissingen Dictation, Bismarck recorded his thoughts about possible "nightmare" anti-German coalitions among the great powers of Europe, with a particular focus on Russia.
1878
11 May: The young workingman Max Hödel attempted to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I but failed to hit him. 24 May: The first attempt to pass an anti-socialist law, introduced in reaction to the assassination attempt, failed in the Reichstag. 2 June: A second attack on the Kaiser left him wounded. Bismarck used the shooting to dissolve the Reichstag on 11 June in hopes of having a better chance to pass his anti-socialist law. 17 July: The Reichstag passed a worker protection law mandating factory inspections. 30 July: In the fourth Reichstag election, the National Liberals lost 30 seats but remained the strongest party. The Centre ran a close second. 21 October: The Anti-Socialist Law passed in the new Reichstag. It banned all social democratic associations, meetings and newspapers.
1879 4 July: Alsace–Lorraine went a step towards autonomy with a law effective 1 October that replaced the with an appointed governor (). Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel was the first governor. 1 October: The Reich Court () was established in Leipzig as the Empire's highest court of law. 7 October: Germany and Austria-Hungary formed the Dual Alliance. Each promised to offer the other military support if attacked by Russia.
1880 14 July: The repeal of the law of 22 April 1875, which had stopped Prussian state subsidies to Catholic dioceses and clergy (the 'Breadbasket Law'), marked the beginning of the end of the .
1881 18 June: The emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary signed the treaty for the second Three Emperors League (). It dealt with issues in the Balkan states and promised "friendly neutrality" in a war between any of the three and another great power. 27 October: In the Empire's fifth Reichstag election, the Catholic Centre Party became the largest party with 100 of the 397 seats, while the National Liberal Party was reduced to 45 seats.
1882 20 May: The Kingdom of Italy joined the 1879 Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary to form the Triple Alliance. Each member promised the others its support in the event of an attack by another great power.
1883 15 June: The Reichstag approved a health insurance plan for workers. It made Germany the first country with a national social insurance system. 11 July: The third Mitigation Law () repealed almost all of the anti-Catholic laws in Prussia.
1884
5 March: The German Progress Party and the Liberal Union merged to form the left-liberal German Free-minded Party. 27 March: The treaty for the Three Emperors League of 1881 was extended for three years. 24 April: German South West Africa became the first German colony when the land purchased by the merchant Adolf Lüderitz in 1883 was put under government protection. 27 June: The Reichstag passed a bill establishing accident insurance as part of Bismarck's social legislation. 5 July: Togo became a German colony when the explorer Gustav Nachtigall, at the request of German merchants, raised the German flag there. Cameroon followed in the same way on 14 July. 28 October: In the sixth Reichstag election, the conservative parties backing Bismarck's policies won a majority of seats.
1885 27 February: Carl Peters received a patent of patronage from Kaiser Wilhelm I to establish what became German East Africa. 26 March: Prussia ordered the deportation of Poles who did not have German citizenship. The measure resulted in about 30,000 expulsions.