English timline By trevorallred2324456 Period: 400 to 2000 timspsan 450 Old English 475 The Fall of the Western Roman Empire 526 he Rise of the Byzantine Empire 1000 Beowulf's writing 1066 The Norman Invasion 1150 Middle English 1215 The Signing of the Magna Carta 1387 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 1440 The invention of the printing press 1452 The Fall of Constantinople 1492 The discovery of the Americas, 1500 Modern English 1500 The establishment of the Spanish Empire 1500 The Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral is credited with the discovery of Brazil 1621 Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio 1764 The American Revolution 1939 and World War II.