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Nov 10, 660
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 -
Nov 10, 1485
Richard III is killed in battle
The Battle of Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York that raged across England in the latter half of the 15th century. opponent, Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed in the battle. Historians consider Bosworth Field to mark the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, making it a defining moment of English and Welsh history. -
Nov 10, 1492
Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas
During his first voyage he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named "San Salvador". Over the course of three more voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming all of it for the Crown of Castile. -
Nov 10, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, 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 10, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
Henry abandoned Rome completely. He thereby asserted the independence of the Ecclesia Anglicana. He appointed himself and his successors as the supreme rulers of the English church. Henry had been declared "Defender of the Faith" in 1521 by Pope Leo X for his pamphlet accusing Martin Luther of heresy Parliament later conferred this title upon Henry in 1544 -
Nov 10, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day. -
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
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, 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.A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed by an Ordinance issued on 6 September 1642.[ -
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Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
Originally drafted in 1605 or 1606 at the latest, with its first known performance on St. Stephen's. -
Shakespeare’s sonnets are published
The sonnets were first published in a 1609 quarto with the full stylised title: 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 – though some scholars have argued convincingly against Shakespeare's authorship of the poem -
King James Bible is published
The King James Version (KJV), also known as the Authorized Version (AV) or the King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. 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. -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
The first group to leave England actually headed for the Dutch Netherlands in 1608. They became uneasy in their new land as their children started speaking Dutch and abandoning English traditions. Even worse to the Separatists, the tolerance shown to them by the Dutch was shown to many different faiths. They became disgusted with the attention paid to worldly goods, and the -
Newspapers are first published in London
In the beginning of the 17th century, the right to print was strictly controlled in England. This was probably the reason why the first newspaper in English language was printed in Amsterdam. When the English started printing their own papers in London, they reverted to the pamphlet format used by contemporary books. The publication of these newsbooks was suspended between 1632 and 1638 by order of the Star Chamber. -
John Milton begins Paradise Lost
In his introduction to the Penguin edition of Paradise Lost, the Milton scholar John Leonard notes, "John Milton was nearly sixty when he published Paradise Lost in 1667.Leonard speculates that the English Civil War interrupted Milton's earliest attempts to start his "epic [poem] that would encompass all space and time.
