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May 6, 653
Celtic church begins to spread Christianity among people living in Severn Valley.
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May 6, 664
Synod of Whitby establishes Roman Church in England.
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May 6, 731
Bede completes "A History of the English Church and People."
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May 6, 750
Surviving version of Beowulf composed.
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May 6, 1040
Macbeth kills Duncan I.
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May 6, 1042
Edward the Confessor becomes king of Saxons.
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May 6, 1066
Normans defeat Saxons at Hastings; William the Conqueror becomes king of England.
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May 6, 1073
Canterbury becomes England's religious center.
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May 6, 1130
Oxford becomes a center for learning.
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May 6, 1170
Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered.
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May 6, 1215
King John forced to sign Magna Carta.
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May 6, 1233
First coal mined at Newcastle.
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May 6, 1258
First commoners allowed in Parliament.
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May 6, 1272
Edward I becomes king.
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May 6, 1277
England conquers Wales.
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May 6, 1295
Edward I assembles Model Parliament.
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May 6, 1337
Beginning of the Hundred Years' War with France.
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May 12, 1343
Geoffrey Chaucer
"The Canterbury Tales", "The Pardoner's Tale", "The Wife of Bath's Tale" -
May 6, 1348
Black Death begins sweeping through England.
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May 6, 1375
Surviving version of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" written.
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May 6, 1381
Bible first translated into English.
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May 6, 1381
Peasants' Revolt.
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May 6, 1386
Chaucer begins writing "The Canterbury Tales."
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May 10, 1405
Sir Thomas Mallory
"Morte d'Arthur" -
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.
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May 6, 1470
Thomas Malory writes "Morte d'Arthur."
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May 6, 1485
The Wars of the Roses ends.
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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" -
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
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
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Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea
"A Nocturnal Reverie" -
Jonathan Swift
"Gulliver's Travels", "A Modest Proposal" -
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
"To a Mouse", "To a Louse" -
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
"Frankenstein" -
Period: to
The Romantic Period
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Period: to
The Victorian Period
Named after Queen Victoria who ruled as queen for 64 years -
Period: to
A Time of Rapid Change
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Burton Raffel
Translated "The Seafarer" and "Beowulf" -
Anglo-Saxon invasion.
circa -
St. Augustine founds Christian monastery at Canterbury, Kent.
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Vikings attack Lindisfarne.
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Alfred the Great becomes King of Wessex.
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Saxon monks copy Old English poems into "The Exeter Book."
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English defeated by Danes at Battle of Maldon.
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Period: to May 6, 1485
Old English and Medieval Period
The Beginning
