British Timeline

By silas
  • May 6, 653

    Celtic church begins to spread Christianity among people living in Severn Valley.

  • May 6, 664

    Synod of Whitby establishes Roman Church in England.

  • May 6, 731

    Bede completes "A History of the English Church and People."

  • Surviving version of Beowulf composed.
    May 6, 750

    Surviving version of Beowulf composed.

  • May 6, 1040

    Macbeth kills Duncan I.

  • May 6, 1042

    Edward the Confessor becomes king of Saxons.

  • Normans defeat Saxons at Hastings; William the Conqueror becomes king of England.
    May 6, 1066

    Normans defeat Saxons at Hastings; William the Conqueror becomes king of England.

  • May 6, 1073

    Canterbury becomes England's religious center.

  • May 6, 1130

    Oxford becomes a center for learning.

  • Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered.
    May 6, 1170

    Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered.

  • May 6, 1215

    King John forced to sign Magna Carta.

  • First coal mined at Newcastle.
    May 6, 1233

    First coal mined at Newcastle.

  • May 6, 1258

    First commoners allowed in Parliament.

  • Edward I becomes king.
    May 6, 1272

    Edward I becomes king.

  • May 6, 1277

    England conquers Wales.

  • May 6, 1295

    Edward I assembles Model Parliament.

  • May 6, 1337

    Beginning of the Hundred Years' War with France.

  • May 12, 1343

    Geoffrey Chaucer

    "The Canterbury Tales", "The Pardoner's Tale", "The Wife of Bath's Tale"
  • Black Death begins sweeping through England.
    May 6, 1348

    Black Death begins sweeping through England.

  • May 6, 1375

    Surviving version of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" written.

  • May 6, 1381

    Bible first translated into English.

  • May 6, 1381

    Peasants' Revolt.

  • May 6, 1386

    Chaucer begins writing "The Canterbury Tales."

  • May 10, 1405

    Sir Thomas Mallory

    "Morte d'Arthur"
  • Margaret Paston
    May 10, 1423

    Margaret Paston

    "Letters of Margaret Paston", "Twa Corbies", "Lord Randall", "Get Up and Bar the Door", "Barbara Allen"
  • May 6, 1455

    The Wars of the Roses begins.

  • May 6, 1470

    Thomas Malory writes "Morte d'Arthur."

  • May 6, 1485

    The Wars of the Roses ends.

  • Period: May 12, 1485 to

    The English Renaissance Period

    Very exciting and religious. Started in Italy.
  • May 10, 1552

    Edmund Spenser

    "Sonnet 1", "Sonnet 35", "Sonnet 75"
  • May 10, 1554

    Sir Walter Raleigh

    "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepard"
  • May 10, 1554

    Sir Phillip Sidney

    "Sonnet 31", "Sonnet 39"
  • William Shakespeare
    May 10, 1564

    William Shakespeare

    "Sonnet 29", "Sonnet 116", "Sonnet 130", "Macbeth"
  • May 10, 1564

    Christopher Marlowe

    "The Passionate Shepard to His Love"
  • May 10, 1572

    Ben Jonson

    "On My First Son", "Still to Be Neat", "Song: To Celia"
  • May 10, 1572

    John Donne

    "Song", "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", "Holy Sonnet 10", "Meditation 17"

  • Robert Herrick

    "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"

  • Sir John Suckling

    "Song"
  • King James Bible

    King James Bible

    Completed. "Psalm 23", "The Sermon on the Mount", "The Parable of the Prodigal Son"

  • Andrew Marvell

    "To His Coy Mistress"
  • Period: to

    "A Turbulent Time" The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

  • Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea

    "A Nocturnal Reverie"

  • Jonathan Swift

    "Gulliver's Travels", "A Modest Proposal"
  • Alexander Pope

    Alexander Pope

    "An Essay on Man", "The Rape of the Loc k"

  • Samuel Johnson

    "A Dictionary of the English Language"

  • Thomas Gray

    "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

  • James Boswell

    "The Life of Samuel Johnson"

  • William Blake

    "The Lamb", "The Tyger", "The Chimney Sweeper", "Infant Sorrow"
  • Robert Burns

    Robert Burns

    "To a Mouse", "To a Louse"

  • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

    "Frankenstein"
  • Period: to

    The Romantic Period

  • Period: to

    The Victorian Period

    Named after Queen Victoria who ruled as queen for 64 years
  • Period: to

    A Time of Rapid Change

  • Burton Raffel

    Burton Raffel

    Translated "The Seafarer" and "Beowulf"
  • Anglo-Saxon invasion.

    Anglo-Saxon invasion.

    circa

  • St. Augustine founds Christian monastery at Canterbury, Kent.

  • Vikings attack Lindisfarne.

    Vikings attack Lindisfarne.

  • Alfred the Great becomes King of Wessex.

  • Saxon monks copy Old English poems into "The Exeter Book."

    Saxon monks copy Old English poems into "The Exeter Book."

  • English defeated by Danes at Battle of Maldon.

  • Period: to May 6, 1485

    Old English and Medieval Period

    The Beginning