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Aug 22, 1485
Richard III is killed in batlle
Killed 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
Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. -
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
The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.[ -
Jan 1, 1543
With the supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of church England
Henry's Act of Supremacy was repealed (1554) in the reign of his staunchly Catholic daughter, Mary I. It was reinstated by Mary's Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth I, when she ascended the throne. Elizabeth declared herself Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and instituted an Oath of Supremacy, requiring anyone taking public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the Church and state. -
Jan 15, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes the queen of England
Two months after the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary I of England, Elizabeth Tudor, the 25-year-old daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is crowned Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey in London. -
Apr 23, 1564
1564 William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon, is born
Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare's birthday -
Globe Theatre is built in London
The original Globe was an Elizabethan theatre which opened in Autumn 1599 in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, in an area now known as Bankside. It was one of several major theatres that were located in the area, the others being the Swan, the Rose and The Hope. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
The Tragedy of King Lear, a more theatrical revision, was included in the 1623 First Folio. Modern editors usually conflate the two, though some insist that each version has its own individual integrity that should be preserved. -
First permanent english settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia
The founding of Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607 – 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts – sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape the nation and the world. The government, language, customs, beliefs and aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the United States’ heritage today. -
shakespeares sonnets are published
Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. -
King James Bible is published
The King James version remains one of the greatest landmarks in the English tongue. It has decidedly affected our language and thought categories, and although produced in England for English churches. -
The Mayflower lands at a Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
They became uneasy in their new land as their children started speaking Dutch and abandoning English traditions. Even worse to the Separatists, the tolerance shown to them by the Dutch was shown to many different faiths. -
Newspapers are first published in London
William Caxton had introduced the first English printing press in 1476 and, by the early 16th century, the first 'news papers' were seen in Britain. They were, however, slow to evolve, with the largely illiterate population relying on town criers for news. -
John Milton begins Pardise Lost
The poem is separated into twelve "books" or sections, the lengths of which vary greatly (the longest is Book IX, with 1,189 lines, and the shortest Book VII, with 640). -
Puritan commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
On 4 April 1660, Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, in which he made several promises in relation to the reclamation of the crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April.
