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Jan 27, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard died at the Battle of Bosworth on Aug. 22, 1485, fighting an army led by Henry Tudor, who would become Henry VII. He was surrounded by enemy forces, according to one account, after his horse got stuck in a marsh. -
Jan 27, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. By October 10 the crew's apprehension had increased to the point of near mutiny. Columbus headed off disaster by promising his crew that if land was not sighted in two days, they would return home. The next day land was discovered. -
Jan 27, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is an oil painting on a poplar wood panel by the Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer Leonardo da Vinci, probably the world’s most-famous painting. It was painted sometime between 1503 and 1506, when Leonardo was living in Florence, and it now hangs in the Louvre, in Paris, where it remains an object of pilgrimage in the 21st century. -
Jan 26, 1516
Thomas More's 'Utopia' is published
'Utopia' attempts to offer a practical response to the crises of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by carefully defining an ideal republic. Unlike Plato's Republic, a largely abstract dialogue about justice, 'Utopia' focuses on politics and social organization in stark detail. The books begin a conversation between Thomas More and Raphael (Hebrew for 'God has healed'). Raphael is a traveler who has seen much of the world yet is impressed by little of it. -
Jan 27, 1543
Henry VIII proclaims himself head of the church of England
The title was created for King Henry VIII, who was responsible for the English Catholic church breaking away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church after the Pope excommunicated Henry in 1533 over his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. By 1536, Henry had broken with Rome, seized the church's assets in England and declared the Church of England as the established church with himself as its head. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 confirmed the King's status as having supremacy over the church. -
Jan 27, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, and Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England. -
Jan 26, 1564
William Shakespeare , the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare was nicknamed the Bard of Avon because he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. -
Globe Theatre built in London
Shakespeare's company erected the storied Globe Theatre circa 1599 in London's Bankside district. It was one of four major theatres in the area, along with the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope. The open-air, polygonal amphitheater rose three stories high with a diameter of approximately 100 feet, holding a seating capacity of up to 3,000 spectators. The rectangular stage platform on which the plays were performed was nearly 43 feet wide and 28 feet deep. This staging area probably housed trap doors. -
Shakespeare writes 'King Lear'
King Lear is a tragedy by the big Billy himself, William Shakespeare. The play's action centers on an aging king who decides to divvy up his kingdom between his three daughters (Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia) in order to avoid any conflict after his death. -
Shakespeare writes Macbeth
Shakespeare’s shortest and bloodiest tragedy, Macbeth tells the story of a brave Scottish general (Macbeth) who receives a prophecy from a trio of sinister witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed with ambitious thoughts and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and seizes the throne for himself. He begins his reign racked with guilt and fear and soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. -
First permanent English settlement is established
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. The government, language, customs, beliefs and aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the United States’ heritage today. -
Shakespeare's sonnets are published
Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609, by Thomas Thorpe. There was no reprint until 1640. Despite a conspiracy theory that would insist that the volume was suppressed, sonnets just were not in vogue anymore. The 1640 piracy titled, rearranged, and combined the sonnets until those to the young man seem to be to a woman. -
King James Bible is published
First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII, and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568. -
The Mayflower lands
Over a hundred travelers embarked on the voyage of the Mayflower in September 1620. In the landmark Mayflower Compact of 1620, the Pilgrims decided that they would rule themselves, based on majority rule of the townsmen. This independent attitude set up a tradition of self-rule that would later lead to town meetings and elected legislatures -
Newspapers are first publisjed in London
This list of the oldest newspapers sorts the newspapers of the world by the date of their first publication. The earliest newspapers date to 17th century Europe when printed periodicals began rapidly to replace the practice of hand-writing newssheets. The emergence of the new media branch has to be seen in close connection with the simultaneous spread of the printing press from which the publishing press derives it name. -
John Milton begins Paradise Last
Paradise Lost is one of the finest examples of epic tradition in all of literature. Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 (though written nearly ten years earlier) in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; manorchy is restored.
In 1660 Parliament offered to restore the monarchy if Charles would agree to concessions for religious toleration and a general amnesty. Charles was not as hard-headed as his father, and he agreed to the proposals. He returned to London on a wave of popular support to be crowned Charles II.