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Oct 21, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III was King of England for two years. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. He was seen as a "good lord" who would "punish the opppressers of the commons" he is also said to have had a "good heart". -
Oct 21, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. He completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World. -
Oct 21, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, musician writer and other things. His most famous work in our time is the Mona Lisa. Its fame rests on the elusive smile on the woman's face, its mysterious quality brought about perhaps by the fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth and eyes so that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. -
Oct 21, 1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. A framed narrative is a story within a story -
Oct 21, 1543
Henry VIII proclaims himself head of the Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St Augustine of Canterbury in AD 597. -
Oct 21, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born into the royal succession, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half years after her birth, with Anne's marriage to Henry VIII being annulled, and Elizabeth hence declared illegitimate.She was 25 when she took the throne. -
Oct 21, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regared as the greatest writer English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets. -
GlobTheatre 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, 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 descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all.
Macbeth a brave Scottish general who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself -
First permenant English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 24, 1607, and considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610, it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. -
Shakespeare's sonnets are published
These 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.: Never before imprinted. A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines that follows a certain rhyme scheme. -
King James Bible is published
The King James Bible is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. 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 Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
The Mayflower was the Pilgrim ship that in 1620 made the historic voyage from England to the New World. The ship carried 102 passengers in two core groups – religious Separatists coming from Holland and a largely non-religious settler group from London. -
Newspapers are first published in London
The emergence of the new media in the 17th century has to be seen in close connection with the spread of the printing press from which the publishing press derives its name. The first newspaper in English language was printed in Amsterdam. -
Jogn Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674). It was originally published in 1667. The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men". -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
Charles II was king of England, Scotland and Ireland. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II King of Great Britain and Ireland, the English Parliament instead passed a statute that made any such proclamation unlawful. England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth. English Commonwealth was when England was ruled as a republic.
