Timeline of World
History
The
Renaissance (1453-1650)
1450
Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press
1453
Fall of Constantinople to the Turks
1485
Henry VII of England (r. 1485-1509)
1492
Columbus’s discovery of America
Death of Lorenzo de Medici, il Magnifico (1449-1492)
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) (r. 1492-1503), father of Lucretia and Cesare
Borgia
1495
Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (1495)
1497
Vasco da Gama (d. 1524), sea voyage from Portugal to India (1497-1499) via the
southern tip of Africa
1498
execution of Girolamo Savonarola for his criticisms of the corruption of the Church
1503
Pope Julius II (1503-1513), patron of Michelangelo (Sistine Chaper ceiling painted 1508-1512)
Michelangelo’s David (1501-1504)
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503)
1509
coronation of Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547)
Desiderius Erasmus’s Praise of Folly (1509, published 1511)
1513
Pope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici) (r. 1513-1521)
Michelangelo’s Moses (1513-1515)
1516
Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516)
1517
Martin Luther publication his 95 theses at Wittenberg, beginning of the Protestant
Reformation
1519
Ferdinand Magellan sets out on voyage around the world (1519-1522). Magellan died in the Philippines in 1521 before the completion of the trip.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1558)
1521
Diet of Worms, presided by Charles V, official condemnation of Martin Luther and
Protestantism
1522
Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises (1522-1524)
1523
Pope Clement VII (Giulio de Medici) (r. 1523-1534)
1533
Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn and has his previous marriage to Catherine of Aragon
declared invalid
1534
Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy, separation of the Church of England from Rome due to pope’s refusal to grant his divorce from Catherine of Aragon
1535
Sir Thomas More executed by order of Henry VIII
1536
Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541) in England by Henry VIII
Death of Desiderius Erasmus (1536)
1543
Death of Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer and author of De revolutionibus orbium
coelestium (“On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres”), Heliocentric Theory
1545
begins Council of Trent (1545-1563), Catholic Counter-Reformation
1547
Death of Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547)
Death of Francis I of France (r. 1515-1547)
1556
Death of Ignatius Loyola
1558
beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603, r. 1558-1603)
1559
Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("Index of Prohibited Books") first issued by Pope Paul IV
1564
Death of Michelangelo
Death of Andreas Vesalius, anatomist and author of De humani corporis fabrica (“On the Workings of the Human Body”)
Death of John Calvin, Protestant Reformer
1581
Sir Francis Drake (d. 1596) knighted by Queen Elizabeth of England; sailed around the world (1580), participated in the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), and pursued piratical activities against the Spaniards
1584
Sir Walter Raleigh (d. 1618), early attempts at establishing Virginia colony in North
America; knighted in 1585
1587
Mary Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) executed by order of her cousin Elizabeth I of
England
1588
Spanish Armada defeated by the English
1600
philosopher and astronomer Giordano Bruno burned at the stake by the Roman
Inquisition
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
1603
Death of Elizabeth I of England
1605
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615)
1616
Death of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes
1618
beginning of Thirty Years War (1618-1648)
1633
Inquisition’s trial against Galileo, author of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
1642
Death of Galileo
1649
execution of English king Charles I, overthrown by Parliament and Protestant opponents in English Civil War
1650
Death of René Descartes
1657
Death of William Harvey, English physician who described the circulation of blood
1674
Death of John Milton, author of Paradise Lost (1667)
Last
updated:
01/07/2010
|
15 bya-3000 BC | 3000
BC-476 AD | 476 AD-1450 | 1450-1650
| 1650-1770 | 1770-1832
| 1832-1880 | 1880-1950
| 1950-present |
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2001-2010 by Fidel Fajardo-Acosta,
all rights reserved