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Aug 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. 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 was the main character of the play, Richard III. -
Oct 12, 1492
Cristopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World. -
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 di ser Piero da Vinci 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
The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. A frame storyis a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. The frame story leads readers from -
Oct 22, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment of his marriage, the English Reformation and Supremacy Act was at the outset more of a political affair than a theological dispute. -
Nov 17, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth set out to rule by good counsel, and she depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil and Baron Burghley. One of her first moves as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. -
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." He wrote many plays including Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. -
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. The Globe was owned by actors who were also shareholders in Lord Chamberlain's Men. The six Globe shareholders were Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope. It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Great tragedies, considered his most profound work, were written during this time of Shakespeare's career. These included King Lear and Macbeth. King Lear is about a man who 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 about a man who is corrupted ambitoin and it shows the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints. -
First pemanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia
Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort," it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Within a year of Jamestown's founding, the Virginia Company brought Polish and Dutch colonists to help improve the settlement. 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. The first 17 poems, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life. -
King James Bible is published
The King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England. In January 1604, King James I convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England. It was completed in 1611. -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Masachusetts
In September 1620, a merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, a port on the southern coast of England. The ship carried 102 passengers; all hoping to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. Nearly 40 of these passengers were Protestant Separatists–they called themselves “Saints”–who hoped to establish a new church in the New World. -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante was the first English newspaper. The Corante was translated from a Dutch coranto (hence the name) into English, and – as the result of a 1586 edict from the Star Chamber – carried no news about England. The Corante was printed locally, instead of being a Dutch import; in fact, the Corante's existence was the result of a request from James I that Dutch authorities cease coranto exports. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century. The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. -
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. it was proclaimed King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I.
