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Oct 22, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. -
Oct 22, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. Numerous contemporary sources accuse Columbus of tyranny, torture, and genocide in his search for wealth in the New World. -
Oct 22, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. da Vinci is well known for his painting the Mona Lisa. -
Oct 21, 1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
Utopia is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. A frame narrative is a companion story to a story. -
Oct 22, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
The first Act of Supremacy was a piece of legislation that granted King Henry VIII of England Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. It is still the legal authority of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Royal Supremacy is specifically used to describe the legal sovereignty of the civil laws over the laws of the Church in England. -
Oct 22, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I 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. -
Oct 21, 1564
William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, 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". He wrote many great plays, like Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth -
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, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all.
Macbeth: It is considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. Set in Scotland, the play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to fulfil the ambition for power -
First Permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia.
Jamestown was a settlement 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. -
Shakespeare's sonnets are published
From Venus and Adonis: EVEN as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him. -
King James Bible is published
King James Bible, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. This was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. -
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. There are no contemporaneous references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth, and it is not referred to in Edward Winslow's Mourt's Relation or in Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation. -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante was published by the printer Nathaniel Butter in London. The earliest of the seven surviving copies is dated September 24, 1621, but it is thought that this single page news sheet began publication earlier in 1621 -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse." -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monachy is restored with Charles II
Charles II was king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II King of Great Britain and Ireland in Edinburgh on 6 February 1649, the English Parliament instead passed a statute that made any such proclamation unlawful.
