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Oct 14, 1066
William the Conqueror invades England
William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066, decisively defeating and killing Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. -
Jun 18, 1150
Paper was first mass-produced in Spain
Paper as we know it, was invented in China, AD 105, by the Chinese Eunuch Ts'ai Lun. It was, thin, feted, formed, flat made in porous molds from macerated vegetable fiber. -
Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
A charter agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. -
Apr 15, 1348
The Plague
The Black Death or Black Plague was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe. -
Sep 12, 1378
First appearance of Robin Hood in literature
Authors like Joseph Ritson (1795), Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Love Peacock (both 1820), and Pierce Egan (1838) all featured Robin Hood in their works, either momentarily (as in Scott), or as a featured character, and the period ends with Pyle (1883) starting a new trend in Robin Hood stories. -
Aug 7, 1387
Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in a frame story, between 1387 and 1400. It is the story of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury. -
Period: Jul 13, 1455 to Oct 25, 1485
War of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses were a series of wars for control of the throne of England. They were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, those of Lancaster and York. -
Jan 14, 1485
FIrst Printing of Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur was first published in 1485 by William Caxton, and is today perhaps the best-known work of Arthurian literature in English. -
Aug 22, 1485
First Tudor king, Henery VII, is crowned
King of England after seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death, the first monarch of the House of Tudor. -
End of the Crusades
After two centuries the old crusading enthusiasm died out, the old ideal of the crusade as "the way of God" lost its spell. Men had begun to think less of winning future salvation by visits to distant shrines and to think more of their present duties to the world about them. They came to believe that Jerusalem could best be won as Christ and the Apostles had won it "by love, by prayers, and by the shedding of tears."