The Renaissance

By kjwilliamson
  • Nov 8, 1492

    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. Instead he reached the Americas.
  • Nov 8, 1503

    c. 1503 Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa

    Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting, in the Louvre in Paris, is arguably the most famous painting in the world. It is probably also the best known example of sfumato, a painting technique partly responsible for her enigmatic smile
  • Nov 8, 1516

    1516 Thomas More’s Utopia is published

    Sep 26, 1516Thomas mores utopia is published The Title De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia literally translates, "Of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia".
  • Nov 8, 1558

    1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen of England

    Queen of England (1558–1603), the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Through her Religious Settlement of 1559 she enforced the Protestant religion by law. She had Mary Queen of Scots executed in 1587. Her conflict with Roman Catholic Spain led to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Elizabethan age was expansionist in commerce and geographical exploration, and arts and literature flourished.
  • Nov 8, 1564

    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.

  • 1599 Globe Theatre is built in London

    The Globe was owned by actors who were also shareholders in Lord Chamberlain's Men. Two of the six Globe shareholders, Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, owned double shares of the whole, or 25% each; the other four men, Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope, owned a single share, or 12.5%

  • 1605-1606 Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth

    The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most stimulating and popular dramas. Renaissance records of Shakespeare's plays in performance are scarce, but a detailed account of an original production of Macbeth has survived, thanks to Dr. Simon Forman.

  • Queen of England (1558–1603),

    On May 14, 1607, a small company of settlers landed at a point on the James River in Virginia and established the settlement of Jamestown. It was the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

  • 1609 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, first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. (although sonnets 138 and 144 had previously been published in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim). The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal.

  • c.1658 John Milton begins Paradise Lost

    Milton began Paradise Lost in 1658 and finished in 1667. He wrote very little of the poem in his own hand, for he was blind throughout much of the project. Instead, Milton would dictate the poem to an amanuensis, who would read it back to him so that he could make necessary revisions. Milton's daughters later described their father being like a cow ready for milking, pacing about his room until the amanuensis arrived to "unburden" him of the verse he had stored in his mind

  • 1611 King James Bible is published

  • 1621 Newspapers are first published in London

    In 1621 the newspaper "Corante" is published in London.

  • 1485 Richard III is killed in battle

    Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during 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 the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses and is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of an eponymous play by William Shakespeare.

  • c. 1543 With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England

    Henry VIII (1491-1547) was king of England from 1509 to 1547. As a consequence of the Pope's refusal to nullify his first marriage, Henry withdrew from the Roman Church and created the Church of England.