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Oct 21, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.His defeat at Bosworth Field, the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. -
Oct 12, 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.Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, 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 22, 1503
Leonardo Da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa 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.The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. -
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 frame narrative is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. -
Oct 22, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
The title was created for King Henry VIII, who was responsible for the English 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. After his daughter Mary took thron she tried to the settle things with the church, but only after her half sisiter took throne did it happen. -
Nov 17, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana" or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth set out to rule by good counseland she depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first moves as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. -
Oct 21, 1564
William Shakespeare , the Bard of Avon, is born
The actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but, traditionally, April 23, St George's Day, has been Shakespeare's accepted birthday, and a house on Henley Street in Stratford, owned by William's father, John, is accepted as Shakespeare's birth place. But the assumption that the Bard was born on the same day of the month that he died lends an exciting esoteric highlight to the otherwise mundane details of Shakespeare's life. -
Globe Theater is built in London
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. The title character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king. Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare. It is considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. The play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects. -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown Settlement is a name used by the Commonwealth of Virginia's and is also located in new york portion of the historical sites and museums at Jamestown. Jamestown was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Colony of Virginia on May 13, 1607. -
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.The first 17 poems, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation. -
King James Bible is published
The King James Version, commonly known as the Authorized Version or 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 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 at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
On December 21 in 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgirms landed at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Mayflower transported the first English Pilgrims to America, with 102 passengers. When the Pilgrims disembarked, they founded the Plymouth Colony. The Plymouth Colony, along with Jamestown, Virginia, was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America. -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante: or, Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France was the first English newspaper.The earliest of the seven known surviving copies is dated September 24, 1621, and the latest is dated October 22 of that same year.Early issues of the Corante are thought to have appeared as early as the spring of 1621.In September of that year, Thomas Archer, a printer in London, was arrested for distributing corantos without a license, and his printing press was shut down -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, changed into twelve books with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major works, and the work helped to solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
The Restoration of the English monarchy began 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.
