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Aug 22, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
On 22 August 1485, Richard was killed at Bosworth Field, the last English King to die in battle, thereby bringing to an end both the Plantagenet dynasty and the Wars of the Roses. Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII. -
Oct 12, 1492
1492 Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named "San Salvador". Over the course of three more voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming all of it for the Crown of Castile. -
Nov 10, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian 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".The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797. -
Nov 9, 1516
Thomas More’s Utopia is published
Written in Latin for a European audience, More's Utopia is the quintessential humanist dialogue. First published as a dialogue in Antwerp between More and a voyager returned from newly discovered lands, Utopia broadly satirizes European society for its short-sighted love of gain, its lack of Christian piety and charity, and its unreasonableness, and attacks injustices in the English criminal code. -
Jun 28, 1543
1543 With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
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.
Contents
1 First Act of Supremacy 1534
2 Second Act of Supremacy 1559 -
Nov 17, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. -
Apr 26, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564) 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". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses,that have been translated into every major language. -
1599 Globe Theatre is built in London
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend and grandson Sir Matthew Brend, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. It was later rebuilt and a reconstruction stands to this day. -
1605-1606 Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Originally drafted in 1605 or 1606 at the latest, depicts the gradual descent into madness of 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. Derived from the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological Pre-Roman Celtic king. Macbeth is a tragedy that dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia.
Virginia Company of London sent an expedition to establish a settlement in the Virginia Colony in December 1606. The expedition consisted of three ships, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. Arriving at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay in late April, they named the Virginia capes after the sons of their king, the southern Cape Henry Prince of Wales, and the northern Cape Charles, Duke of York. -
1609 Shakespeare’s sonnets are published
154 sonnets cover themes passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman.The sonnets to the young man express overwhelming, obsessional love.The first 17 poems, urge him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation.Other sonnets seem to criticise the young man, the final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid. -
King James Bible is published
The King James Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. It was first printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker and was the third translation into English, approved by the English Church authorities. -
1620 The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.The first known written reference to the rock's existence is in 1715, when it is described in the town boundary records as "a great rock.", a rock traditionally identified as Plymouth Rock, weighing an estimated 20,000 pounds in its original form, has long been memorialized on the shore of Plymouth Harbor in Plymouth, Massachusetts. -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante: or, "Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France" was published by the printer Nathaniel Butter 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 Chamber, it carried no news about England. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Milton composed the ten books of Paradise Lost between 1658 and 1663. He had first planned the work as early as 1640, by 1652 he had become completely blind, which forced him to compose orally, rendering him entirely reliant upon amanuenses to whom he gave dictation. He composed it mostly at night or in the early morning, until someone was available to write down his words. He revised as his text was read back to him, so that a day's work amounted to twenty lines of verse. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
In 1660 the monarchy was restored to the kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland in the person of Charles II. The period that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms was officially declared an Interregnum."The commonwealth parliamentary union was, after 1660, treated as null and void".As in England the republic was deemed constitutionally never to have occurred. The Convention Parliament was dissolved by Charles II in January 1661,
