The Middle Ages

William the Conqueror invades England

Dec 25, 1066

William then marched on London and received the city's submission. 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned the first Norman king of England,\and the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history came to an end. French became the language of the king's court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue to give birth to modern English. William I proved an effective king of England, and the "Domesday Book," a great census of the lands and people of England, was a among his notable achivements.

Paper is first mass-produced in Spain

Jan 1, 1150

Paper was invented in ancient China during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and spread slowly to the west via the Silk Road. Papermaking and manufacturing in Europe was started by Muslims living on the Iberian Peninsula, (today's Portugal and Spain) and Sicily in the 10th century, and slowly spread to Italy and Southern France reaching Germany by 1400. Earlier, other paper-like materials were in use including papyrus, parchment, palm leaves and vellum, but all of these were derived from raw mat

Magna Carta

Jun 29, 1215

The Magna Carta was signed in June 1215 between the barons of Medieval England and King John. 'Magna Carta' is Latin and means "Great Charter". The Magna Carta was one of the most important documents of Medieval England. It was signed between the feudal barons and King John at Runnymede near Windsor Castle. The document was a series of written promises between the king and his subjects that he, the king, would govern England and deal with its people according to the customs of federal law.

End of the Crusades

Aug 29, 1270

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 result of the Fourth Crusade.

The Plague

Aug 29, 1348

Early in the 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: “the mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

First appearance of Robin Hood in literature

Aug 29, 1378

Beginning in the 15th century and perhaps even earlier, Christian revelers in certain parts of England celebrated May Day with plays and games involving a Robin Hood figure with near-religious significance.Throughout Robin’s existence, writers, performers and filmmakers have probed their imaginations for new incarnations that resonate with their respective audiences. In 14th-century England, where agrarian discontent had begun to chip away at the feudal system, he appears as an anti-establishmen

Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales

Aug 29, 1387

Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' Chaucer wrote his collection of stories, told as if by pilgrims on the road from London to Canterbury, in the last two decades of the 14th century. The book was unfinished when he died in 1400.

War of the Roses

Aug 29, 1455

Wars of the Roses, (1455–85), in English history, the series of dynastic civil wars whose violence and civil strife preceded the strong government of the Tudors. Fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years afterward from the supposed badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster.

First Tudor king, Henry VII, is crowned

Aug 29, 1485

Being the first Tudor King of England, establishing the Tudor Dynasty. His victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field overthrew Richard III and effectively put an end to the Wars of the Roses. Henry is also known for his extreme frugality and his ability as an administrator. He was responsible for the beginning of the Star Chamber, a closed court that answered to no one but the king.

First printing of Le Morte d’Arthur

Aug 29, 1485

First published in 1485 by William Caxton, Le Morte d'Arthur is today perhaps the best-known work of Arthurian literature in English. Many modern Arthurian writers have used Malory as their principal source. 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