1. The English Renaissance 1485-1660
Events In British Literature.
1495 Everyman; earliest mortality play.
1516 Thomas More publishes Utopia.
1590 Shakespeare settled in London, begins career as playwright.
1604 James I appoints scholars who begin creating a new translation of the Bible.
1606 Shakespeare’s Macbeth was produced.
1633 John Donne's Poems published posthumously.
1658 Milton begins composing Paradise Lost.

2. Events in Britain
1485- Henry Tudor defeats Richard III and takes the throne as Henry VIII (to 1547)
1536-Henry VIII unites England and Wales
1547- Reign of Edward VI begins
1553- Reign of Mary I begins
1557- Reign of Elizabeth I begins
1580- Sir Francis Drake brings back great treasures after sailing around the world
1588- English navy defeats Spanish Armada
1607- England establishes a Jamestown in Virginia
1620- English Pilgrims establish a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts
1625- Reign of Charles I begins
1642- English Civil War begins
1649- Charles I is beheaded
1660- Monarchy is restored with the accession of Charles II

3. Events in the World
1492- Colombus sails to Bahamas in Western Hemisphere.
1502- first slaves exported from Africa to work in America.
1517- Martin Luther begins Reformation.
1521- Cortés conquers Aztecs in Mexico.
1522- Magellan’s crew sails around the world.
1543- Heliocentric model of solar system developed by Copernicus.
1547- Ivan the Terrible seizes power in Russia (first czar)
1590- Dutch eyeglass-maker Zacharias Janssen invents microscope.
1603- Japan’s Tokugawa regime begins.
1609-Italian scientist Galileo Galilei studies heavens with telescope.
1633-Galileo condemned for supporting Copernicus’s theory.
1643-Louis XIV begins 72-year reign in France.
1644- Ming Dynasty collapses, replaced by the Qing Dynasty.