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Aug 22, 1485
Richard III
In August 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who was a Lancastrian claimant to the throne landed in South Wales. He marched east and engaged Richard in battle on Bosworth Field on 22 August. Although Richard possessed superior numbers, several of his key lieutenants defected. Refusing to flee, Richard was killed in battle and Henry Tudor took the throne as Henry VII. -
Jan 3, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the americas
Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a maritime entrepreneur. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the gold and spice islands of Asia. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. Contrary to popular legend, educated Europ -
Jan 1, 1503
leonardo da vinci paints the mona lisa
Historians agree that Leonardo commenced the painting of Mona Lisa in 1503, working on it for approximately four years and keeping it himself for some years after. Supposedly this was because Mona Lisa was Leonardo's favourite painting and he was loathe to part with it, however it may also have been because the painting was unfinished. Whatever the reason, much later it was sold to the King of France for four thousand gold crowns -
Jan 1, 1516
thomas More's Utopia is published
was an English lawyer and scholar whose writings became famous throughout Europe in the early sixteenth century. In that period, "humanists" were attacking the established educational system of the medieval universities ("scholasticism") and advocating wide-ranging political, social and educational reforms -
Jan 1, 1543
supremacy act, Henrey VII
The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the King was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England" and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse to acknowledge the King as such. In response to the excommunications, the Peter's Pence Act was passed in and it reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of -
Jan 1, 1558
elizabeth I becomes queen of england
Queen of England (1558–1603), the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Through her Religious Settlement of 1559 she enforced the Protestant religion by law. She had Mary Queen of Scots executed in 1587. Her conflict with Roman Catholic Spain led to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Elizabethan age was expansionist in commerce and geographical exploration, and arts and literature flourished. The rulers of many European states made unsuccessful bids to marry Elizabeth, and she used -
Dec 1, 1564
William Shakespeare
The Bard of Avon', English poet and playwright wrote the famous 154 Sonnets and numerous highly successful oft quoted dramatic works including the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. was born after a tumultuous century of violent religious and political events, into the quiet town of Stratford-upon-Avon. -
globe theatre
It was built on the Southbank of the river Thames in Southwark, London in close proximity to the Bear Garden. The land had been owned by the Bishop of Winchester and this estate was called the Liberty of the Clink. -
shakespeare writes king lear and macbeth
William Shakespeare's play King Lear is performed at the court of King James I of England. Lear is one of the later works penned by the playwright.His greatest tragedies were written after 1600,He became a member of the popular theater group the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who later became the King's Men -
first permanent english settlement in north america
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 sonnets
Sonnets are fourteen-line lyric poems, traditionally written in iambic pentameter - that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable, as in: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?". Sonnets originated in Italy and were introduced to England during the Tudor period by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Shake-speare followed the more idiomatic rhyme scheme of sonnets that Sir Philip Sydney used in the first great Elizabethan sonnets cycle -
king james bible
was England's authorized version of the Bible translated from the original Hebrew and Greek languages into English at the request of King James I of England -
the Mayflower lands at Plumouth Rock
They set sail from England on the Mayflower, arriving in Massachusettes in December. When they landed, the colonists called their new home "New Plymouth." The colonists all signed the "Mayflower Covenant" before landing, promising to establish "just and equal laws." -
newspaper first puplished in london
The London Gazette claims to be the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK, having been first published on 7 November 1665 as The Oxford Gazette. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Milton sold Paradise Lost to the printer Samuel Simmons for £5. The contract is dated 27 April 1667; the book was published in late October or early November 1667. Although Milton had completed Paradise Lost by 1665, publication was delayed by a paper shortage caused by the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Great Plague (during which over eighty London printers died), and the Great Fire of London, 1666, which destroyed many of the city's presses. The absence of Simmons's name on the earliest title pag -
puritan commonwealth ends
when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established
