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Jan 1, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III 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. -
Jan 1, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. -
Jan 1, 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". -
Jan 1, 1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away was the commonwealth of Utopia. Well, almost. Arguably one of the first books to invent an imaginary world, Thomas More's Utopia describes the travels of one man, Raphael Hythloday, to an undiscovered island that he considers to be the best country on earth. -
Jan 1, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henrey VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
The Act of Supremacy was legislation in 1534 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. -
Jan 1, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England
Elizabeth I was the long-ruling queen of England, governing with relative stability and prosperity for 44 years. The Elizabethan era is named for her. -
Jan 1, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, 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". -
Globe Theatre is built in London
The first proper theater as we know it was called Theatre, built at Shoreditch, London in 1576. Before this time plays were performed in the courtyard of inns or inn-yards, or sometimes, in the houses of noblemen or in extreme circumstances on open ground. -
William Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Lear, the aging king of Britain, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom evenly among his three daughters. First, however, he puts his daughters through a test, asking each to tell him how much she loves him. Macbeth charts the bloody rise to power and tragic downfall of the warrior Macbeth. Already a successful soldier in the army of King Duncan, Macbeth is informed by Three Witches that he is to become king. -
First permanent English settlement in North America is etablished at Jamestown, Virginia
On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company settlers landed on Jamestown Island to establish an English colony 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Discovery of the exact location of the first fort indicates its site was in a secure place, where Spanish ships could not fire point blank into the fort. Within days of landing, the colonists were attacked by Powhatan Indians. The newcomers spent the next few weeks working to "beare and plant palisadoes" for a wooden fort. It was inside this fort -
Shakespeare's sonnets are published
Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets accredited to William Shakespeare which cover themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. It was first published in a 1609 quarto with the full stylised title: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. -
King James Bible id published
In 1604, King James I of England authorized that a new translation of the Bible into English be started. It was finished in 1611, just 85 years after the first translation of the New Testament into English appeared. The Authorized Version, or King James Version, quickly became the standard for English-speaking Protestants. Its flowing language and prose rhythm has had a profound influence on the literature of the past 400 years. The King James Version present on the Bible Gateway -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
In September 1620, a merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, a port on the southern coast of England. Typically, the Mayflower’s cargo was wine and dry goods, but on this trip the ship carried passengers: 102 of them, 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. Today, we often refer to the colonists who crossed th -
Newspapers are first published in London
The Corante was published by the printer Nathaniel ButterOffsite Link 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. Corante was the first private newspaper published in English. As a result of a 1586 edict from the Star ChamberOffsite Link, it carried no news about England. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost, as much as anything, is a series of arguments put forth by the characters, which in turn ultimately expresses Milton’s personal truth. It is, in that sense, a Puritanical work. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends:; monarchy is restored with Charles II
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after 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.
