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Jan 1, 1449
Birth of Lorenzo de' Medici
The most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. -
1455
Gutenberg prints the first Bible
First book ever printed. -
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". -
1504
Michelangelo sculpts the David
He sculpted David, from David and Goliath. -
1516
Thomas More writes Utopia
He wrote a book about a Utopia, which was the first Utopian book ever published. -
1517
Martin Luther posts 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church
The priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. -
1543
Nicolaus Copernicus publishes On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), written by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and published just before his death, placed the sun at the center of the universe and argued that the Earth moved across the heavens as one of the planets -
1564
William Shakespeare is Born
He's an English poet. -
King Henry VIII begins Protestant Anglican church
Under King Henry VIII in the 16th century, the Church of England broke with Rome, largely because Pope Clement VII refused to grant Henry an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. ... Upon Henry's death, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer began changes that allied the Church of England with the Reformation. -
Galileo invents a thermometer
Named after the 16th–17th-century physicist Galileo, the thermometer described in this article was not invented by him. Galileo did invent a thermometer, called Galileo's air thermometer.