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1485
Richard 3 is killed in battle
He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. He was the last English king to die in battle. He suffered two head wounds that would have killed him almost immediately -
1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the americas
Columbus, and most others, underestimated the world’s size, calculating that East Asia must lie approximately where North America sits on the globe (they did not yet know that the Pacific Ocean existed). -
1503
Leonardo da vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The painting is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. Recent academic work suggests that it would not have been started before 1513.It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797. -
1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries. -
1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Chruch of England
It granted King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs Royal Supremacy, such that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. -
1558
Elizabeth 1 becomes queen of England
Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two-and-a-half years after Elizabeth's birth. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Jane Grey and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, in spite of statute law to the contrary. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels -
Global Theatre is built in London
It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company 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. -
Period: to
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear is a tragedy that depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom by giving bequests to two of his three daughters egged on by their continual flattery. Macbeth is a tragedy thought to have been first performed in1606 and it dramatizes 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 etablished at Jamestown Virginia
The founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607 – 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts – sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape the nation and the world. -
Shakespeare's sonnets are published
Shakespeare's sonnets are poems that he wrote on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609; however there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost. -
KIng James Bible is Published
King James Bible (KJB) or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, begun in 1604 and completed/published in 1611.[a] The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament -
Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock,Mass
The Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor in 1620, after first stopping near today's Provincetown. According to oral tradition, Plymouth Rock was the site where William Bradford and other Pilgrims first set foot on land -
Newspapers are first published in London
Britain's press can trace its history back more than 300 years and William Caxton had introduced the first English printing press in 1476 and by the early 16th century were having the first news papers being published -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse in the 17th century(1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time. -
Puritain commonwealth ends, monarchy is restored with charles II
Restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660. It marked the return of Charles II as king (1660–85) following the period of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. The bishops were restored to Parliament, which established a strict Anglican orthodoxy.
