500-1900

By jhallier
  • 529

    St. Benedict founds his first monastery.

  • 590

    St. Gregory the Great becomes pope

  • 596

    Pope St. Gregory the Great sends St. Augustine of Canterbury to England to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons.

  • 597

    St. Augustine baptizes the King of Kent

  • 716

    St. Boniface leaves England to evangelize Germania

  • 754

    With St. Boniface’s help, the pope allies with the kings of the Franks

  • 1000

    Muslims control two thirds of the ancient Christian world

  • 1054

    The Gr eat Schism

  • 1073

    St. Gregory VII elected pope

  • 1073

    Pope St. Gregory VII excommunicates the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV

  • 1088

    First universities founded

  • 1094

    The Byzantine emperor in Constantinople asks the West for aid against Muslim armies

  • 1095

    Pope Urban II calls for a Crusade, and Christians temporarily capture Jerusalem

  • 1144

    First Gothic cathedral completed

  • 1147

    Second Crusades

  • 1192

    Third Crusade

  • 1204

    Crusaders from the Fourth Crusade sack Constantinople

  • 1209

    Franciscan Order is founded by St. Francis of Assis

  • 1216

    Dominican Order founded by St. Dominic

  • 1229

    The Inquisition is founded

  • Period: 1265 to 1274

    St. Thomas Aquinas write the Summa Theologica

  • 1300

    The Renaissance begins

  • 1347

    Bubonic plague arrives in Europe.

  • 1377

    St. Catherine of Siena convinces the pope to return the papacy to Rome

  • 1386

    St. Catherine of Siena cares for the sick and buries the dead when the plague strikes Siena.

  • 1440

    Printing Press invented

  • 1453

    Muslims conquer Constantinople and tun Hagia Sophia into a mosque

  • 1492

    Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas

  • 1492

    Christopher Columbus sails for North America

  • 1513

    Ponce de Leon of Spain founds St. Augustine, Florida St. Augustine, named for St. Augustine of Hippo, was the first European settlement in what is now the United States

  • 1517

    Martin Luther presents the 95 Theses In this document, Luther presented what he saw as abusive practices in the Catholic Church.

  • 1520

    Luther denies the authority of the pope to interpret Scripture

  • 1521

    Luther is excommunicated

  • 1522

    Luther translates bible into german

  • 1526

    Franciscan missionaries arrive in what is now Florida

  • 1534

    St. Ignatius of Loyola founds the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

  • 1534

    King Henry VIII of England breaks England from the Catholic Church after the pope refuses to allow him a divorce

  • 1535

    St. Thomas More is executed by Henry VIII

  • 1536

    Henry VIII dissolves all monasteries and convents in England and ireland

  • 1541

    First Franciscan explorations in what is now California

  • Period: 1545 to 1563

    The Council of Trent

  • 1549

    Jesuit missionaries arrive in the Far East

  • Period: 1562 to 1582

    St. Teresa of Avila founds Discalced Carmelite convents throughout Spain

  • The King James Bible becomes the Bible of the Church of England

  • St. Peter Claver arrives in Colombia

  • The Mayflower sets sail from England to North America

  • The Colony of Maryland is established

  • England overthrows its Catholic king and bans any future Catholic monarchs

  • Maryland outlaws the public practice of Catholicism in the colony

  • Period: to

    The Enlightenment

  • British colonies in North America declare their independence

  • The French Revolution begins

    One of the goals of the revolution was to turn France into a completely secular nation and rid it of Christianity. Church property was seized, and many priests and religious were persecuted, imprisoned, and killed.

  • The US Constitution prevents religious tests for national office

  • The First Amendment protects free religious exercise in the US and prevents national government from establishing a religion.

    States were free to keep their established churches, and many did into the early 1800s.

  • Karl Marx writes the Communist Manifesto

  • Period: to

    Ecumencial Council of the Vatican (known as Vatican I)

  • Bolshevik party formed in Russia

  • World War I begins

  • Mexico outlaws Catholicism

  • Soviet Union is formed (Lenin was its first leader; Stalin took power two years after Lenin’s death)

  • The first Catholic bishops in China are ordained

  • Servant of God Dorothy Day converts to Catholicism

  • Bl. Miguel Pro is killed by the Mexican government

  • Hitler beomes chancellor of Germany; first Nazi concentration camp is opened

  • Day founds the Catholic Worker newspaper

  • Word War II begins

  • Communist governments begin persecutions and mass murder across Europe and Asia

  • St. Maximilian Kolbe is killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz

  • Pope St. John XXIII calls the Church council that will become known as Vatican II

  • Period: to

    Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (now known as Vatican II)

  • The US Supreme Court rules that the Constitution protects the right ot an abortion

  • Pope St. John Paul II survives an assassination attempt ordered by the KGB

  • The Soviet Union begins to fall

    The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of communism in Europe would come in 1991