-
400
Beginning
-
Period: 450 to 1150
Old English
-
700
Approximate date of the earliest manuscript records of Old English
-
750
Suspected date of Beowulf's writing
-
867
Danes raid England and Danish begins to influence English
-
1000
Old Norse loanwords enter the language
These words included sister, wish, skin, and die. -
1066
The Norman Invasion
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1150
Approximate date of the earliest surviving texts in Middle English
-
Period: 1150 to 1450
Middle English
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1362
Parliament is opened with its first speech delivered in English
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1400
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
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1400
The Great Vowel Shift begins
This changed the pronunciation of words like bite, meat, meet, mate, out, boot, and boat. -
1436
The invention of the Printing Press
-
Period: 1450 to
Modern English
-
1492
The discovery of North America
-
William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar is published
-
Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall or the first English dictionary is published
-
Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio
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The American Revolution
-
The Telegraph is invented by Samuel Morse
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End