English Language Timeline By jaggerblom Period: 400 to 1100 Old English Period: 400 to 2000 Timespan 700 Suspected date of Beowulf's writing 868 The invention of the printing press 1066 The Norman Invasion Period: 1100 to 1500 Middle English 1387 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 1492 The discovery of the Americas Period: 1500 to 2000 Modern English 1623 Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio 1778 The American Revolution 1945 World War II