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Feb 11, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, symbolises the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. -
Feb 11, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire. -
Feb 11, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world. -
Feb 11, 1516
1516 Thomas More’s Utopia is published
The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. -
Apr 21, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later assumed the Kingship, of Ireland, and continued the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. -
Nov 17, 1558
1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana" or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. -
Apr 26, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" -
Globe Theatre is built in London
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613 -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history -
1605-1606 Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Register on 26 November 1607 as A booke called. Mr William Shakespeare his historye of Kinge Lear ,
Scholars place the date of composition as somewhere between 1603 and 1607, but efforts to narrow that date have proved inconclusive. Several possible topical references to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 have been proposed and debated among scholars, but these references have not been universally accepted -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia.
in the Colony of Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 24, 1607 (O.S., May 14, 1607 N.S.),[2] and considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610, it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Jamestown served as the capital of the colony for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699. -
Shakespeare’s sonnets are published
Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Never before imprinted -
King James Bible is published
is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611 -
Newspapers are first published in London
was the first English newspaper -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
The Restoration of the English monarchy began when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
