English Language Timeline

By gavdaley06
  • 400

    Origin of The English Language

    The origins of the English language lie in today's England and the arrival of Anglo-Saxon tribes from Central Europe to the British Isles in 400 AD.
  • Period: 400 to 500

    Angles and Saxons first arrive in Britain

    Bede gave a precise date, 449AD, for the first arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and he said they came from three tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who themselves came from different parts of Germany and Denmark.
  • Period: 700 to 800

    Date of Beowulf's Writing

    An Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines. It is possibly the oldest surviving long poem in Old English and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature.
  • Period: 800 to 900

    Establishment of the Danelaw

    Danelaw was created by treaties signed between Alfred the Great of Wessex, and the Viking warlord Guthrum, following Alfred's victory at the Battle of Edington in 878.
  • Period: 900 to 1000

    England united under King Edgar

    King Edgar came to power in 959, uniting a fractured England and introducing a period of calm and stability, something unheard of in medieval kingship.
  • Period: 1000 to 1100

    The Norman Conquest

    The Norman conquest in 1066 was the last successful conquest of England.
  • Period: 1200 to 1300

    The crusaders of the Sixth Crusade surround Jerusalem

    The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land.
  • Period: 1300 to 1400

    The Canterbury Tales

    The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer.
  • Period: 1300 to 1400

    The Hundred Years' War

    The Hundred Years' War was a long struggle between England and France over succession to the French throne.
  • Period: 1300 to 1400

    The Black Death

    The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded.
  • Period: 1400 to 1500

    Invention of the Printing Press

    The printing press is often said to have been created by Gutenberg in Mainz, and it began taking root in Europe in the 1450s with the printing of the aforementioned Bible.
  • Period: 1400 to 1500

    Discovery of the Americas

    Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering the Americas in 1492.
  • Period: to

    Publication of William Shakespeare's folio

    Printed in the large "folio" size, the First Folio is the first collected edition of the plays of William Shakespeare.
  • Period: to

    King James Version of The Bible

    King James Version, KJV, known as the King James Bible (KJB) or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is the English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England.
  • Period: to

    The Revolutionary War

    The American Revolution—also called the U.S. War of Independence—was the insurrection, which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America.
  • Period: to

    Launch of the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary

    The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the main historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.
  • Period: to

    World War 2

    World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies defeated the Axis powers of Nazi Germany.