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1565
Spanish Colonize Florida
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1571
Christian Alliance Breaks Turkish Sea-Power at Lepanto
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1580
French Civil War Between Catholics and Huguenots
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Birth
Born at Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England. His father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of Charlton and Westport. Thomas Hobbes, the younger, had a brother Edmund, about two years older, and a sister. Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London and abandon the family. The family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a wealthy merchant with no family. -
Toyotomi Hideyoshi Unifies Japan
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Education
Hobbes Jr. was educated at Westport church from age four, passed to the Malmesbury school, and then to a private school kept by a young man named Robert Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford. Hobbes was a good pupil, and he eventually went up to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor college to Hertford College, Oxford. The principal John Wilkinson was a Puritan, and he had some influence on Hobbes. Hobbes studied scholastic philosophy. -
Bachelores Degree
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Tour of Europe
Hobbes became a companion to the younger William and they both took part in a grand tour of Europe. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour, in contrast to the scholastic philosophy that he had learned in Oxford. Although he associated with literary figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis Bacon's amanuensis, he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629. -
Influence of Galileo
Hobbes travels to Italy to meet with Galileo. With his influence, Hobbes develops his social philosophy on principles of geometry and natural science. -
Visits Florence
He visited Florence and was later a regular debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne. -
Comes Home
Hobbes came home (to England) to a country riven with discontent, elements of Hobbes's political thought were unchanged between The Elements of Law and Leviathan, which demonstrates that the events of the English Civil War had little effect on his contractarian methodology. -
Exiled in Paris
When in November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded the Short, Hobbes felt that he was in disfavour due to the circulation of his treatise and fled to Paris. He did not return for 11 years. He built a good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645 was chosen with Descartes, Gilles de Roberval and others to referee the controversy between John Pell and Longomontanus over the problem of squaring the circle. -
Tutored Again
Hobbes took up a position as mathematical instructor to the young Charles, Prince of Wales, who had come over from Jersey around July. This engagement lasted until 1648 when Charles went to Holland. The company of the exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan, which set forth his theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. -
Near Death
Nov 19, 1647Near death
Got sick and was in a near death exp.In 1647, a serious illness that nearly killed him disabled him for six months. -
Private Life
After publishing Leviathan, the secularist spirit of his book greatly angered both Anglicans and French Catholics. Hobbes appealed to the revolutionary English government for protection and fled back to London. After his submission to the Council of State, he was allowed to subside into private life in Fetter Lane. -
Opponents
1) John Bramhall (published In 1654 a small treatise, Of Liberty and Necessity, directed at Hobbes) 2) John Wallis (From 1655, the publishing date of De Corpore, Hobbes and Wallis went round after round trying to disprove each other's positions. After years of debate, the spat over proving the squaring of the circle gained such notoriety that it has become one of the most infamous feuds in mathematical history.) -
Final Publications
Hobbes published the final section of his philosophical system, completing the scheme he had planned more than 20 years before. -
The Great Fire of London
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The House of Commons
The House of Commons introduced a bill against atheism and profaneness - targeting Hobbes book the leviathine. The only consequence that came of the bill was that Hobbes could never thereafter publish anything in England on subjects relating to human conduct. -
Death
In October 1679 Hobbes suffered a bladder disorder, and then a paralytic stroke, from which he died. His last words were said to have been "A great leap in the dark", uttered in his final conscious moments. His body was interred in St John the Baptist's Church, Ault Hucknall, in Derbyshire.