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Period: 1095 to 1291
The crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. -
1099
The Siege of Jerusalem
The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War, in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. -
1202
The Attack on Zara
The crusaders, who came from France, had agreed to pay the Venetians to transport them to the Holy Land, but they found themselves without sufficient funds. Faced with the threat of abandonment of the crusade and forfeiture of money already paid, they acquiesced to the Venetian proposal to lay siege to Zara. -
Apr 12, 1204
Sack of Constantinople
The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. -
Period: 1346 to 1353
The black death
In 1346, the bacteria called Yersinia pestis widely spread in Western Eurasia and North Africa resulting in about 75-200 million deaths, wiping out 60% of all Europeans. -
1347
The Black Death Reaches Europe
The plague arrived in western Europe in 1347 and in England in 1348. It faded away in the early 1350s. -
1348
The Black Death reaches London
The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people—almost a quarter of London's population—in 18 months. -
1351
The Black Death Leaves Europe
Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. -
Period: 1400 to 1495
The Early Renaissance
The Early Renaissance the period from about 1400 to 1500 in European, esp Italian, painting, sculpture, and architecture, when naturalistic styles and humanist theories were evolved from the study of classical sources, notably by Donatello, Masaccio, and Alberti. -
Period: 1400 to
The Age of Exploration
It was a period of time when the European nations began exploring the world. They discovered new routes to India, much of the Far East, and the Americas. -
1436
The printing press was invented by Gutenberg
Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press, although he was far from the first to automate the book-printing process. -
1455
Gutenburg Bible was made
The Gutenburg Bible was made during this period by Johann Gutenburg. -
Nov 1, 1478
The Spanish Inquisition Begins
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile -
1492
Columbus Discovers America
Explorer Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) is known for his 1492 'discovery' of the New World of the Americas on board his ship Santa Maria. -
Oct 12, 1492
Columbus arrives to the Bahamas
Columbus and his ships landed on an island that the native Lucayan people called Guanahani. -
1495
The "Last supper" by Leonardo Da Vinci
The Last supper was painted during this year by Leonardo Da Vinci. -
Period: 1495 to 1527
The High Renaissance
The High Renaissance is defined as architecture, and arts, it was also centered in Rome. -
May 20, 1498
Vasco de Gama Reaches India
Over the course of two voyages, beginning in 1497 and 1502, da Gama landed and traded in locales along the coast of southern Africa before reaching India on May 20, 1498. -
1503
The "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo Da Vinci
The Mona Lisa was painted during this year by Leonardo Da Vinci. -
1504
The "David" sculpture was made
At the Accademia Gallery, you can admire from a short distance the perfection of the most famous statue in Florence and, perhaps, in all the world: Michelangelo's David. This astonishing Renaissance sculpture was created between 1501 and 1504. -
Oct 31, 1517
Martin Luther Writes 95 Theses
On October 31, 1517, legend has it that the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. -
Period: Oct 31, 1517 to 1555
The Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s. It resulted in the creation of a branch of Christianity called Protestantism, a name used collectively to refer to the many religious groups that separated from the Roman Catholic Church due to differences in doctrine. -
1521
Diet of Worms
The Edict of Worms of 1521 was an imperial diet of the Holy Roman Empire called by Emperor Charles V and conducted in the Imperial Free City of Worms. Martin Luther was summoned to the Diet in order to renounce or reaffirm his views in response to a Papal bull of Pope Leo X. -
Period: 1527 to
The Late Renaissance
The Late Renaissance was characterized by artworks, and their primary subject was the human body. It's also known as the Mannerist period. -
Period: 1543 to
The Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry transformed the views of society about nature. -
May 24, 1543
Copernicus's Death
Copernicus was a Polish astronomer and mathematician known as the father of modern astronomy and contributed heavily to the Scientific Revolution. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage. -
1553
Ivan The Terrible
The moniker alluded to Ivan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, the infamous Tsar of Russia. -
Sep 25, 1555
The Peace of Augsburg
Peace of Augsburg, first permanent legal basis for the coexistence of Lutheranism and Catholicism in Germany, promulgated on September 25, 1555, by the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire assembled earlier that year at Augsburg. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Is Born
Galileo was born in Pisa on February 15, 1564. By the time he died on January 8, 1642 (but for problems with the date, see Machamer 1998b, 24–25), he was as famous as any person in Europe. -
The Microscope was invented by Janssen
For millennia, the smallest thing humans could see was about as wide as a human hair. When the microscope was invented around 1590, suddenly we saw a new world of living things in our water, in our food and under our nose. -
Thirty Years' War Ends
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%. -
Isaac Newton Invents calculus
Isaac invents calculus. -
The Black Death Leaves London
London never really caught a break after the Black Death. The plague resurfaced roughly every 10 years from 1348 to 1665—40 outbreaks in just over 300 years. And with each new plague epidemic, 20 percent of the men, women and children living in the British capital were killed.