The Middle Ages

William the Conqueror invades England

Aug 29, 1066

William argued that Edward had previously promised the throne to him, and that Harold had sworn to support William's claim. William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066, decisively defeating and killing Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066.

paper is first mass-produced in Spain

Aug 29, 1150

The invention of paper is usually attributed to Ts'ai Lun, an official in the Chinese royal court, in A.D. 105. The invention of paper solved a pressing problem of the time. Back then, scrolls of silk were being used as books. But the development of calligraphy and the animal hair brush, and the resulting proliferation of literature, created the need for a writing material that was cheaper and more practical than pure silk. In fact, part of the Chinese ideogram character for "paper" means "silk.

Magna Carta

Aug 29, 1215

Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter), also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, is an Angevin charter originally issued in Latin. It was sealed under oath by King John at Runnymede, on the bank of the River Thames near Windsor, England, on 15 June
Magna Carta was the first document imposed upon a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their rights.

end of the Crusades

Aug 29, 1270

The Results of the end of the Medieval Crusades
The crusades, judged by what they set out to accomplish, must be accounted an inglorious failure. After two hundred years of conflict, after a vast expenditure of wealth and human lives, the Holy Land remained in Moslem hands. It is true that the First Crusade did help, by the conquest of Syria, to check the advance of the Turks toward Constantinople. But even this benefit was more than undone by the weakening of the Roman Empire in the East as a

The Plague

Aug 29, 1348

The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347 when 12 Genoese trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea. The people who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a horrifying surprise: Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those who were still alive were gravely ill. They were overcome with fever, unable to keep food down and delirious from pain. Strangest of all, they were covered in mysterious black boi

first appearance of Robin Hood in literature

Aug 29, 1378

The subject of ballads, books and films, Robin Hood has proven to be one of popular culture’s most enduring folk heroes. Over the course of 700 years, the outlaw from Nottinghamshire who robs from the rich to give to the poor has emerged as one of the most enduring folk heroes in popular culture–and one of the most versatile. But how has the legend of Sherwood Forest’s merry outlaws evolved over time, and did a real Robin Hood inspire these classic tales?

Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales

Aug 29, 1387

Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English
The Narrator is an anonymous member of the pilgrimage
The pilgrimage happened in the late fourteenth century
In the story, Chaucer's plan is to make none of his storytellers better than others
Each of the characters express different views of reality
The pilgrims destination is the Tabbard Inn
The original copies of Canterbury Tales were printed in 1477
It was written around 1386-1395
It is written in the past tense

War of the Roses

Aug 29, 1455

In the opening battle of England's War of the Roses, the Yorkists defeat King Henry VI's Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. Many Lancastrian nobles perished, including Edmund Beaufort, the duke of Somerset, and the king was forced to submit to the rule of his cousin, Richard of York. The dynastic struggle between the House of York, whose badge was a white rose, and the House of Lancaster, later associated with a red rose, would stretch on for 30 years

first printing of Le Morte d’ArthurPolitical and Social Events

Aug 29, 1485

Malory probably started work on Le Morte d'Arthur while he was in prison in the early 1450s and completed it by 1470. “Malory did not invent the stories in this collection; he translated and compiled them...Malory in fact translated Arthurian stories that already existed in thirteenth-century French prose (the so-called Old French Vulgate romances) and compiled them together with at least one tale from Middle English sources (the Alliterative Morte Arthure and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur) to creat

First Tudor king, Henry VII, is crowned

Aug 29, 1485

Henry was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who died before Henry was born, and Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Although the Beaufort line, which was originally illegitimate, had been specifically excluded (1407) from all claim to the throne, the death of the imprisoned Henry VI (1471) made Henry Tudor head of the house of Lancaster. At this point, however, the Yorkist Edward IV had established himself securely on the throne, and