History of the English Language

  • Period: 400 to 1150

    Old English

  • 750

    Suspected date of Beowulf's writing

    Beowulf is an epic poem that has been considered one of the most important and most translated works of Old English.
  • 793

    Viking raids of Britain begin

    Viking Raids began in England. They mostly happened on Christian Monasteries
  • 1066

    The Norman Invasion

    The Norman Conquest was lead by William, Duke of Normandy and caused political, administrative, and social changes to the British Isles.
  • Period: 1150 to 1450

    Middle English

  • 1346

    The Black Death

    The black death was a bubonic plague pandemic that devastated Europe and Asia throughout the mid 1300s.
  • 1387

    Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

    It is a collection of 24 stories within a frame story about the journey of a group of Pilgrims including Chaucer.
  • 1436

    The Invention of the Printing Press

    German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press which is a machine in which images and text are transferred from moveable type to paper. This started the printing revolution.
  • Period: 1450 to

    Modern English

  • Oct 12, 1492

    The discovery of North America

    Christopher Columbus first came to the Americas when his ship The Santa Maria landed in the Bahamas.
  • Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio

    This is the first published collection of Shakespeare's plays. It was published 7 years after his death.
  • The American Revolution

    The American Revolution was a political and military struggle when North America's 13 colonies rejected its imperial rule and fought for freedom from Great Britain.