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Nov 8, 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. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England -
Nov 8, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. -
Nov 8, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. -
Nov 8, 1516
Thomas More’s Utopia is published
Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. -
Nov 8, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
The Acts of Supremacy are two acts of the Parliament of England passed in 1534 and 1559 which established King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs as the supreme head of the Church of England. Prior to 1534, the supreme head of the English Church was the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. -
Nov 8, 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. -
Nov 8, 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 -
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. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Macbeth (/məkˈbɛθ/; full title The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been first performed in 1606.[1] It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake -
First permanent English settlement in North America is established at Jamestown, Virginia.
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas -
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 -
King James Bible is published
The King James Version, also known as the Authorized Version or the King James Bible, 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, Massachusetts
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history -
Newspapers are first published in London
The first true newspaper published in Britain was the Oxford Gazette, which was published in 1665. By the 18th century, many more newspapers were being published - 24 papers in all by the 1720s. -
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; 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 in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
