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Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, 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 last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the historical play Richard III by William Shakespeare.
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Christopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo [kriˈstɔːforo koˈlombo];[a] c. 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer. Born in the Republic of Genoa,[3] under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages and his efforts to establish settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the permanent European colonization of the New World.
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The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world.
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Sir Thomas More was the first person to write of a 'utopia', a word used to describe a perfect imaginary world. More's book imagines a complex, self-contained community set on an island, in which people share a common culture and way of life. It is unclear as to whether the book is a serious projection of a better way of life, or a satire that gave More a platform from which to discuss the chaos of European politics.
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The Acts of Supremacy are two acts of the Parliament of England passed in 1534 and 1559 which established King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs as the supreme head of the Church of England. Prior to 1534, the supreme head of the English Church was the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603)[1] was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the last monarch of the House of Tudor.
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According to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain the exact day on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newborn.
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The Globe was built by carpenter Peter Smith and his workers and was the most magnificent theater that London had ever seen. It was built between 1597 -1598.
Timber, nails, stone (flint), plaster and thatch (for the roof). -
King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom giving bequests to two of his three daughters based on their flattery of him, bringing tragic consequences for all. Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1606. It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake.
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The Jamestown[1] settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. William Kelso writes that Jamestown "is where the British Empire began". It was established by the Virginia Company of London as James Fort on May 4, 1607, and was considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610. It followed several failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Jamestown served as the capital of the colony of Virginia for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699.
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Shakespeare's sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman.
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The King James Version (KJV), also known as the King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.[a] The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha (most of which correspond to books in the Vulgate Deuterocanonical adhered to by Roman Catholics), and the 27 books of the New Testament.
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The Mayflower was an English ship that famously transported the first English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth, England to the New World in 1620.[1] There were 102 passengers, and the crew is estimated to have been about 30, but the exact number is unknown.
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Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.
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The Restoration of the English monarchy took place during the Stuart period. It began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under the Stuart King Charles II. It followed the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established.
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In the early 17th century, newspapers were very different than the current versions. News and information were passed along via pamphlets, news sheets or posters. The first true newspaper published in Britain was the Oxford Gazette, which was published in 1665.
