Renaissance

  • 1485

    Richard lll is killed in battle

    Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 1483 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.
  • 1492

    Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas

    On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in Asia, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands.
  • 1503

    Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa

    The Mona Lisa 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"
  • 1516

    Thomas More's Utopia is published

    Thomas More's Utopia is published
    Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478–1535) published in 1516 in Latin. 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.
  • 1543

    With the Supremacy Act, Henry Vlll proclaims himself head of Church of England

    The first Act of Supremacy was passed on 3 November 1534 (26 Hen. VIII c. 1) by the Parliament of England. It granted King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs Royal Supremacy, such that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. ... In the Act of Supremacy, Henry abandoned Rome completely.
  • 1558

    Elizabeth l 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 on 24 March 1603. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor.
  • 1564

    William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born

    William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
    William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as both 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

    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.
  • Period: to

    Shakespeare writes King Lear an Macbeth

    In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. ... Shakespeare authored King Lear around 1605, between Othello and Macbeth, and it is usually ranked with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's greatest plays.
  • 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.
  • Shakespeare's sonnets are published

    Shakespeare's sonnets are poems that William Shakespeare wrote on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609; however there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost.
  • King James Bible is published

    Image result for King James Bible is publishedphys.org
    The King James Version (KJV), also known as the King James Bible (KJB) or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, begun in 1604 and completed/published in 1611.
  • The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts

    The 102 travelers aboard the Mayflower landed upon the shores of Plymouth in 1620. This rock still sits on those shores to commemorate the historic event. The Pilgrims had an important question to answer before they set ashore.
  • Newspapers are first published

    Image result for Newspapers are first publishedwww.history.org
    In Boston in 1690, Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. This is considered the first newspaper in the American colonies even though only one edition was published before the paper was suppressed by the government.
  • John Milton begins Paradise Lost

    Paradise Lost. 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.
  • Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles ll

    Restoration, Restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660. It marked the return of Charles II as king (1660–85) following the period of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. The bishops were restored to Parliament, which established a strict Anglican orthodoxy.