English

By meghan123
  • 600

    Rise of Saxon kingdoms

    Irish and St. Augustine missionaries convert Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, which results in Latin and Greek religious words being merged into the English language
  • 700

    Suspected date of Beowulf's writing

    It was written in England some time between the 8th and the early 11th century. The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the “Beowulf poet.” The poem is set in Scandinavia. it was written between the year 700 and 750.
  • 700

    manuscript

    earliest manuscript records of Old English
  • 900

    danes intrude england

    Danes intrude England and create a kingdom at York, which results in Danish words influencing English language; Anglo-Saxons conquer the Vikings under the kingship of Alfred the Great, Latin works are translated to English and English prose is born.
  • 1066

    The Norman Invasion

    The Norman conquest of England (in Britain, often called the Norman Conquest or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and men from other provinces of the Kingdom of France, all led by the Duke of Normandy later styled William the Conqueror.
  • 1150

    middle english

    earliest surviving text of Middle English
  • 1200

    native english

    Native English speakers begin to form literary culture; England becomes the sole place for Norman French and English
  • 1387

    Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

    The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work.
  • 1440

    The invention of the Printing Press

    Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which started the Printing Revolution.
  • 1497

    The discovery of North America

    The Voyages of Christopher Columbus opened the New World. Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni Caboto (known in English as John Cabot) is credited with the discovery of continental North America on June 24, 1497, under the commission of Henry VII of England.
  • 1564

    shakespeare

    1564- Shakespeare is born.

  • shakespeare

    William Shakespeare writes his Sonnets and the majority of his plays.

  • Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio

    Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, published in 1623, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio. It is considered one of the most influential books ever published.

  • war

    Civil War breaks out in England after King Charles I attempts to arrest his parliamentary critics. The war leads to the execution of Charles I, the dissolution of parliament, and the replacement of the English monarchy with a Protectorate (1653–59) under Oliver Cromwell's rule.

  • The American Revolution

    The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution which occurred in colonial North America between 1765 and 1783.
    In April 1775 British soldiers, called lobsterbacks because of their red coats, and minutemen—the colonists' militia—exchanged gunfire at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Described as "the shot heard round the world," it signaled the start of the American Revolution and led to the creation of a new nation.

  • expansion

    From the beginning of the 17th century, colonists began settling in America. Eventually, a uniquely American style of English evolved. Noah Webster published his dictionary in 1828, in an effort to standardize the American language. Of course, there are more similarities than differences in the various dialects of English.