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Jan 1, 1485
Richard lll is killed in battle
He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marks the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. -
Jan 1, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian (his name would translate in the 16th-century Genoese language as Christoffa. In one of his writings, Columbus claims to have gone to the sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. -
Jan 1, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
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 and 1506, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. -
Jan 1, 1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
Utopia" is derived from the Greek words ou (οὐ), "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία) that is typical of toponyms; hence Outopía (Οὐτοπία; Latinized as Utopia, with stress on the second syllable), meaning "no-place-land". In early modern English, Utopia was spelled "Utopie", which is today rendered Utopy in some editions. -
Jan 1, 1558
Elizabeth l becomes queen of England
In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne, and she set out to rule by good counsel.[1] She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. -
Jan 1, 1558
With the Supremacy Act, Henry Vlll proclaims himself head of Church of England
Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. His disagreements with the Pope led to his separation of the Church of England from papal authority, with himself, as King, as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. -
Jan 1, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. -
Globe Theatre 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. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The titular character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. Based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king, the play has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, with the title role coveted by many of the world's most accomplished actors. -
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. -
KIng James Bible is published
The title of the first edition of the translation was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Containing the Old Testament, AND THE NEW: Newly Translated out of the Original tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties special Commandment". -
Newspapers are first published in London
the beginning of the 17th century, the right to print was strictly controlled in England. This was probably the reason why the first newspaper in English language was printed in Amsterdam by Joris Veseler around 1620. This followed the style established by Veseler's earlier Dutch paper Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c. However, when the English started printing their own papers in London, they reverted to the pamphlet format used by contemporary books. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
The poem is separated into twelve "books" or sections, the lengths of which vary greatly (the longest is Book IX, with 1,189 lines, and the shortest Book VII, with 640). The Arguments at the head of each book were added in subsequent imprints of the first edition. Originally published in ten books, a fully "Revised and Augmented" edition reorganized into twelve books was issued in 1674, and this is the edition generally used today. -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restores with Charles ll
was the period from 1649 onwards when England, along later with Ireland and Scotland, was ruled as a republic following the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The republic's existence was initially declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth" adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virgina
In 1619, the first documented Africans -- about 50 men, women and children -- came to Jamestown aboard a Portuguese slave ship that had been captured in the West Indies and brought to the Jamestown region. -
the Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
The Pilgrim ship Mayflower was a typical English merchant ship of the early 17th century – square-rigged and beak-bowed, with high, castle-like structures fore and aft that served to protect the ship's crew and the main deck from the elements. But having on her stern such structures as the 30-foot high, square aft-castle made the Mayflower extremely difficult to sail against the wind.
