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Nov 9, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. -
Nov 9, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. -
Nov 9, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman 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" -
Nov 9, 1516
Thomas More’s Utopia is published
Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries. -
Nov 3, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
The first Act of Supremacy was passed by the Parliament of England. It granted King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. Royal Supremacy is specifically used to describe the legal sovereignty of the civil laws over the laws of the Church in England. -
Nov 9, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Queen Elizabeth I was born on the September 7, 1533 in Greenwich England. She was a princess but declared illegitimate through political machinations. She eventually claimed the throne at the age of 25 and held it for 44 years, keeping England in the ascendant through wars, and political and religious turmoil. -
Apr 9, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. -
Globe Theatre is built in London
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas 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 by an Ordinance issued on 6 September 1642. -
Period: to
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom giving bequests to two of his three daughters based on their flattery of him, bringing tragic consequences for all. Derived from the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia.
On May 14,, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. -
Shakespeare’s sonnets are published
Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman. -
King James Bible is published
King James Bible, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
During the reign of King James I, around 100 English men and women–many of them members of the English Separatist Church–set sail for the New World aboard the Mayflower, a three-masted merchant ship. The ship landed on the shores of Cape Cod, in present-day Massachusetts -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante:was the first newspaper printed in England. The earliest of the seven known surviving copies is dated September 24, 1621 (although John Chamberlain is on record as having complained about them in August), 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.The first version,consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books.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. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
King Charles II, the first monarch to rule after the English Restoration. 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.
