English Chronology

(events that have affected England and, sometimes, the English language through the centuries)

A Condensed Chronology of the English Language

  • 55 B.C.: Roman invasion of Britain led by Julius Caesar.
  • 43-409 A.D.: The conquest of Britain under the Emperor Claudius lasted until the collapse of the Roman Empire in the British area.
  • A.D. 61: Rebellion against the Romans by Celts under the leadership of Boudicca.
  • A.D. 98: First description of Germanic society in Tacitus' Germania.
  • 122: The Romans started building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of Britain. This 117-km stone and turf construction linked castles and forts and acted as a frontier, stretching from the Tyne to the Solway Firth separating the Romanized south from the unconquered north.
  • 367: Invasion of Picts and Scots.
  • c. 410: Withdrawal of Roman troops from the Roman province of Britain.
  • 436: Complete Roman withdrawal from Britain.
  • 449: Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain began with waves of invasions by Angles, Frisians, Jutes, and Saxons.
  • 450-480: Earliest Old English inscriptions date from this period.
  • c. 450-600: Invasion of Britain by numerous bands of Germanic tribesmen (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, et al.); warfare with the native British or Welsh.
  • c.521: Date of a raid by Hygelac on the continent (an event mentioned in Beowulf), recorded by the Frankish historian Gregory of Tours.
  • 597: Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory the Great, arrived in Canterbury, Britain. It was the beginning of the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Augustine's mission is said to have been an effort to extend an earlier program, particularly by the Celtic Church, to increase more Christianity in England.
  • 657-680: Caedmon, monk of Whitby, divinely inspired to compose Christian poetry in English; according to Bede.
  • 663: Synod of Whitby, resolving dispute between Celtic and Roman Christians.
  • c. 671-735: Life of Bede, Northumbrian scholar and author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
  • 700-750 (revised c.1000): The oldest surviving manuscript of Beowulf dated from this period.
  • 731: The Venerable Bede published The Ecclesiastical History of the English People in Latin; providing the most complete picture of life from the the Romans to his own time as the English nation started to emerge. He popularized the Anno Domini (A.D.) dating system.
  • 757-796: Offa, King of Mercia, was building a 113 km-dike to mark the boundary between Wales and England.
  • 792: Viking raids and settlements started.
  • 793: Sacking of the monastery at Lindisfarne by Vikings initiates many decades of raiding and invasions.
  • 843: Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Scots, whose Gaelic-speaking ancestors came from Ireland, took the Pict throne and united the two into the kingdom of Scotia.
  • 865: The Danes occupied Northumbria.
  • 871-899: Alfred became king of Wessex. He had Latin works translated into English and initiated the practice of English prose. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was started.
  • 911: Charles II of France granted Normandy to the Viking chief Hrolf the Ganger. The beginning of Norman French.
  • 926: Wessex's King Athelstan was acknowledged as King of all the English.
  • 1016-1035: Reign of Cnut, King of England and Scandinavia.
  • 1066: The Norman conquest. At the Battle of Hastings, the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, defeated King Harold of England, ending Anglo-Saxon rule. Under the Norman ascendancy, the centralization of the realm was completed.
  • 1086: Domesday Survey.
  • c.1150: The oldest surviving manuscripts in Middle English date from this period.
  • 1171: Henry II conquered Ireland.
  • 1204: King John lost the province of Normandy to France.
  • 1215: The Magna Carta was signed at Runnymede between King John and representatives of the aristocracy. Among its 63 clauses was the proposition that no man was above the law; including the King, creating a milestone in constitutional history.
  • 1337-1453: The Hundred Years War.
  • 1348: English replaced Latin as the medium of instruction in schools, other than Oxford and Cambridge which have also dropped Latin for English.
  • 1349-50: The Black Death killed one third (or more) of the British population.
  • 1362: "The Statute of Pleading" replaced French with English as the language of law. Records continued to be kept in Latin. English was used in Parliament for the first time.
  • 1384: Wycliffe published his English translation of the Bible.
  • c.1388: Chaucer began The Canterbury Tales.
  • c.1400: The Great Vowel Shift started.
  • 1455-87: The Wars of the Roses.
  • 1476: William Caxton established the first English printing press.
  • 1485: Caxton published Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
  • 1492: Columbus discovered the New World.
  • 1525: William Tyndale translated the New Testament.
  • 1529-39: Henry VIII's Reformation of Parliament and the dissolution of monasteries. The English Reformation broke ties with the Church of Rome as the Act of Supremacy was passed, making Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
  • 1536: The first "Act of Union" united England and Wales. A series of "Acts of Union" formally integrated England and Wales, making English the official language for Wales.
  • 1549: First version of The Book of Common Prayer.
  • 1554-1558: Brief Catholic restoration under Mary Tudor.
  • 1558-1603: The reign of Elizabeth I ended the religious strife in Britain, but she had to contend with the Catholic powers of France and Spain. The French threat led her to order the execution of the half-French, half-Scottish Mary Queen of Scots in 1587.Elizabeth's personification as Gloriana fueled national pride and sensibility as reflected in the cultural flowering led by Marlowe, Spenser, and Shakespeare.
  • 1579: Venerable English College, Rome, established to train priests for England and Wales, where Catholics at the time faced persecution; the oldest English institution anywhere outside of England.
  • 1588: Dispersal of the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth I's cautious diplomacy with Spain culminated in the defeat of the Armada in 1588.
  • c.1590-c.1613: Shakespeare wrote his plays.
  • 1603: Union of the English and Scottish crowns under James the I (VI of Scotland). This union was achieved when the childless Elizabeth was succeeded by the Stuart King, James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. He initiated the advance of the notion of being British, introduced the Union Flag, and presided over the translation of the "Authorized Version" of the Bible.
  • 1604: Robert Cawdrey published the first English dictionary, Table Alphabeticall.
  • 1607: Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, was established.
  • 1611: The Authorized, or King James Version, of the Bible was published
  • 1616: Death of William Shakespeare.
  • 1623: Shakespeare's "First Folio" was published.
  • 1642-1658: Civil war in England led to the parliamentary Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell after the execution of Charles I, 1n 1649.
  • 1660: The Stuarts were restored to power when Charles II reclaimed the throne.
  • 1666: The Great Fire of London. End of The Great Plague.
  • 1688-1689: The "Glorious Revolution" secured the Protestant succession; after the ouster of the Catholic James II, by the accession of William of Orange and Mary. The Bill of Rights established the principle of parliamentary supremacy and excluded Roman Catholics from the succession.
  • 1702: Publication of the first daily, English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant, in London.
  • 1707: The Scots' failure to accept the Hanoverian succession and the ensuing economic threats from London brought about the Act of Union between England and Scotland, creating the country of Great Britain. Scotland retained its legal and judicial systems and its own church.
  • c.1730: Wesley brothers founded Methodism (Christian denomination).
  • 1745: The second Jacobite Rebellion, headed by Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") ended at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This defeat led to the breakdown of the Highland Clan system: the English even banned the Scots from wearing the kilt, the use of tartan, or the gathering of the clans.
  • 1750: The establishment of the East India Company started the development of the British Empire which would eventually become the largest and most populous in history, ruling a quarter of the world's people over a quarter of its landmass, producing 53 percent of world iron, 50 percent of world iron, 50 percent of coal and lignite, and conducting one-fifth of all trade until its disintegration started with the independence of India in 1947.
  • 1755: Samuel Johnson published his dictionary.
  • 1760s-1830s: The period of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, transforming the economy and the social order.
  • 1775-1783: American War of Independence resulted in the loss of the 13 colonies.
  • 1782: Washington defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown. Britain abandoned the American colonies.
  • c.1785-1800: First steam powered cotton mills.
  • 1828: Irish famine.
  • 1832: The Great Reform Act, expanded the franchise to the upper middle class which led to universal suffrage in 1928.
  • 1863: First underground railway built in London; Darwin's Origin of Species was published.
  • 1928: The Oxford English Dictionary was published.
  • 1939-1945: The Second World War, after which Britain's Empire started to disintegrate, contributing to the country's economic and political decline.
  • 1969: The first oilfield was discovered on the U.K.'s continental shelf of the North Sea, which led to the first production in 1975.
  • 1996: The Stone of Scone, Scotland's coronation stone of ancient kings, was returned from London to Edinburgh Castle, 700 years after it was stolen by Edward I.