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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 -
Oct 22, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
The voyages of Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of great significance in world history. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for Castile, a country that later founded modern Spain. He made four voyages to the Americas, the first being in 1492, which resulted in the Discovery of America from a European point of view. -
Oct 22, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
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." Leonardo da Vinici was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. -
Oct 21, 1516
Thomas More’s Utopia is published
Utopia is a book about a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. It is written as a frame story. A frame story is is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story. In the book, a visitor to this island tells about his trip there. He talks about how the society is perfect there. -
Oct 22, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry's struggles with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority, and his own establishment as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. -
Nov 17, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana" or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born into the royal succession, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half years after her birth, with Anne's marriage to Henry VIII being annulled, and Elizabeth hence declared illegitimate. -
Apr 26, 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". His early plays were mainly comedies and histories. Such as Much Ado About Nothing and King John. However, towards the end, he wrote mostly tragedies and tragicomedies. -
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. It was destroyed by fire on June 29, 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear is a tragedy. The title character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. Macbeth is is considered one of Shakespeare's darkest and most powerful tragedies. 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.
On May 14, 1607, a small company of settlers landed at a point on the James River in Virginia and established the settlement of
Jamestown. It was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. It 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. A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy. The term sonnet derives from the Italian word sonetto, meaning "little song", and by the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. -
King James Bible is published
The King James Bible is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, 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. A group of people (separatists) who later came to be known as the "Pilgrims" founded the Plymouth Colony. The core group was part of a congregation of religious separatists led by William Bradford. -
Newspapers are first published in London
In the beginning of the 17th century, the right to print was strictly controlled in England. This was probably the reason why the first newspaper in English language was printed in Amsterdam around 1620. This followed the style established by Veseler's earlier Dutch paper. However, when the English started printing their own papers in London, they reverted to the pamphlet format used by contemporary books. The era of these newsbooks lasted until the publication of the Oxford Gazette in 1665. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual 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. Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, in which he made several promises in relation to the reclamation of the crown of England.
