Renaissance

By morgan.ridings
  • Aug 22, 1485

    RichardIII is killed in battle

    Polydore Vergil, Henry Tudor's official historian, recorded that "King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies".Richard's naked body was then exposed, possibly in the collegiate foundation of the Annunciation of Our Lady, before being buried at Greyfriars Church in Leicester.
  • Jan 1, 1492

    Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas

    Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas. his voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in
  • Jan 1, 1503

    leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa

    The Mona Lisa (Monna Lisa or La Gioconda in Italian; La Joconde in French) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".
  • Jan 1, 1516

    Thomas More's Utopia is published

    Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin.
  • Jan 1, 1543

    With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himsel head of Church of England

    The title was created for King Henry VIII, who was responsible for the Engliish 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.
  • Nov 17, 1558

    Elizabeth I becomes queen of England

    Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
  • Apr 23, 1564

    William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born

    William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day.

  • Globe Theatre is built in London

    The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend and grandson Sir Matthew Brend, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642

  • Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth

    King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, and is considered one of his darkest and most powerful works.

  • First English Settlement in North America Is Esablished

    In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I. The settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

  • Shakespeare's sonnets are published

    Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.

  • King James Bible is published

    The King James Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.

  • The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock

    Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

  • Newspapers are first published in London

    Corante: or, Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France was the first newspaper printed in England. The earliest of the seven known surviving copies is dated September 24, 1621 and the latest is dated October 22 of that same year.

  • John Milton begins Paradise Lost

    Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse.

  • Puritan Commonwealth Ends

    The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth",adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is now referred to as the Third English Civil War.