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Aug 22, 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. -
Mar 9, 1492
Christopher Columbus Reaches the Americas
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. -
Mar 9, 1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa (La Gioconda or La Joconde, or Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian 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." -
Sep 26, 1516
Thomas More's Utopia is published
Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in 1516. English translations of the title include A Truly Golden Little Book. -
Apr 21, 1543
With the Supremacy Act, Henry VIII proclaims himself head of Church of England
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England the Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII. -
Mar 9, 1558
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
Elizabeth I (known simply as "Elizabeth" until the accession of Elizabeth II; was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called "The Virgin Queen", "Gloriana", or "Good Queen Bess", Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. -
Apr 26, 1564
William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is born
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, 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". -
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, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613.[4] A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642.[ -
William Shakespeare writes King Lear and Macbeth
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play was written between 1603 and 1606 and later revised. -
First Permanent English settlement in North America is establishedat Jamestown, Virginia
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. -
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. -
King James Bible is published
The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible, AV, KJB, or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, This was the third official translation into English. -
The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, MA
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history. There are no contemporaneous references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth, and it is not referred to in Edward Winslow's Mourt's Relation or in Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation. -
Newspapers are first published in London
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register (it became The Times on 1 January 1788). The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News International, itself wholly owned by the News Corporation group headed by Rupert Murdoch. -
John Milton begins in Paradise
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, changed into twelve books with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification -
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.
