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Aug 22, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
Richard III was King of England at the age of 32, and died 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. -
Aug 3, 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. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. -
Nov 10, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
Leonardo has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. It is a half-length portrait of a woman, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". -
Nov 9, 1516
Thomas More’s Utopia is published
Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published 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. -
Sep 7, 1533
Elizabeth I becomes the queen of England
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. -
Nov 10, 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. -
Apr 23, 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. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. -
Globe Theatre is built in London
Theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son and grandson. It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614. -
Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom giving bequests to two of his three daughters based on their flattery of him, bringing tragic consequences for all.
Macbeth 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 established at Jamestown, Virginia.
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. William Kelso writes that Jamestown "is where the British Empire began ... this was the first colony in the British Empire". -
Shakespeare’s sonnets are published
A collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman. -
King James Bible is published
The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, a section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.
It was first printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker and was the third translation into English, approved by the English Church authorities. -
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. -
Newspapers are first published in London
Corante: or, News from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain and France was the first newspaper printed in England. The earliest of the seven known surviving copies and the latest is dated October 22 of that same year. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books. The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men" -
Puritan Commonwealth ends; monarchy is restored with Charles II
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.
The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established.
