European Timeline

(with a focus on England & France)

[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1200	King John succeeds his brother, Richard I ("the Lion-Hearted"), as King of England (1199-1216); John will be the last of the Angevin kings. Phillip II Augustus succeeds his father, Louis VII, as King of France (1180-1223).	1202-4: 4th Crusade, ending with the sacking of Constantinople.		c.1208: Founding of the University of Paris. Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226) begins his brotherhood of monks, to be known as Franciscans (1209). Students and faculty fled Oxford to Cambridge (1209), eventually founding a university there (c.1226).	The German Minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach (c.1170-c.1220) composes Parzival (the first German poem about the Holy Grail).
1210	1215: King John agrees to the terms of the Magna Carta following the meeting of the feudal barons at Runnymede. 1216: Henry III succeeds his father, John, as King of England (1216-1272); this begins the Plantagenet line (1216-1399).	1217-21: 5th Crusade.		1210: Aristotle’s works in natural philosophy are banned at the university in Paris (with similar condemnations occurring in 1270 and 1277).
1220	1223: Louis VIII ("the Lion") succeeds his father, Phillip II, as King of France (1223-1226). 1226: Louis IX ("Saint Louis") succeeds his father, Louis VIII, as King of France (1226-1270).	1228-29: 6th Crusade (led by Emperor Frederick II).	1230s: Buttons are being used in central Germany.
1230
1240		1248-54: 7th Crusade.				1248: Completion of Sainte-Chappelle (in Paris), begun c.1239 by Louis IX as an oversized reliquary to house the relics of the Passion acquired from the emperor of Constantinople.
1250				1252-59, 1269-72: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) teaching in Paris.
1260				c.1265: Birth of the philosopher and theologian Duns Scotus (d. 1308).
1270	1270: Philip III ("the Bold") succeeds his father, Louis IX, as King of France (1270-1285). 1272: Edward I succeeds his father, Henry III, as King of England (1272-1307).	1270: 8th Crusade. 1271-72: 9th Crusade.		1270: Condemnation of Aristotelian philosophy in Paris. 1274: Death of Thomas Aquinas (born c.1225). 1277: Second Condemnation of Aristotelian philosophy by the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier.
1280	1285: Philip IV ("the Fair") succeeds his father, Philip III, as King of France (1285-1314).	Coal-mining well-established in Newcastle, England.	c.1280s: Eyeglasses are invented (Lucca-Pisa, Italy). 1283: The earliest recorded weight-driven mechanical clock is installed at Dunstable Priori (Bedfordshire, England).	1285: Birth of the philosopher and theologian William of Ockham (d. 1349). c.1286: Death of William of Moerbeke (born 1215), who translated all of Aristotle from the Greek into Latin.
1290
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1300	1307: Edward II succeeds his father, Edward I, as King of England (1307-1327).			1309: The Papacy is moved to Avignon, in the south of France; this “Babylonian Captivity” lasts until 1377.	1304: Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) is born in Arezzo, Italy; the Italian Renaissance soon follows.
1310	1314: Louis X ("the Headstrong") succeeds his father, Philip IV, as King of France (1314-1316). 1316: John I ("the Posthumous") succeeds his father, Louis X, as King of France (1316), but lives only five days, causing a crisis in succession. 1316: Philip V ("the Tall") succeeds his nephew, John I, as King of France (1316-22).			1314 (March 18): Jacques de Molay (b. 1244), the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, as well as other Knights Templar, are burnt to death on the Ile des Juifs (now the westernmost tip of the Île-de-la-Cité). 1310-24: William of Ockham lecturing at Oxford.	The Florentine poet Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) is born.
1320	1322: Charles IV ("the Fair"), succeeds his brother Philip V, as King of France (1322-1328); he is the last monarch of the House of Capet. 1327: Edward III succeeds his father, Edward II, as King of England (1327-1377). 1328: Philip VI of Valois ("the Fortunate"), the grandson of Philip III, is King of France (1328-1350).	1324: Marco Polo dies in Venice (where he was born in 1254), having travelled to China (1271-95).		1324: William of Ockham summoned to the Papal Court at Avignon, on charges of heresy. 1328: The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart dies (b. 1260).	1321: Dante Alighieri dies in Ravenna (born c.1265), thus concluding his work on what many view as the greatest literary masterpiece of all time, his Comedy, later named the *Divine Comedy*.
1330		1337: What became the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) began with Edward III's armies marching on Paris.			1336: The Florentine Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) climbs Mont Ventoux.	1373: First written record of mining activity in Montmartre where gypsum (“Plaster of Paris”) was mined into the 19th century.
1340		1348-50: The Black Death is at its peak, reducing world population by one-third.		c.1347: William of Ockham dies in Munich (born c.1288).		1345: The Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is completed (begun in 1163).
1350	1350: John II ("the Good"), succeeds his father Philip VI, as King of France (1350-1364).
1360	1364: Charles V ("the Wise"), succeeds his father John II, as King of France (1364-1380).
1370	1377: Richard II succeeds his grandfather, Edward III, as King of England (1377-1399); he will be the last of the Plantagenet kings.		1370: Charles V orders the church bells of Paris to ring every hour and qarter-hour .	1378-1417: The Great Schism between the pro-French papacy in Avignon and the pro-English/German papacy in Rome.
1380	1380: Charles VI ("the Beloved, the Mad"), succeeds his father Charles V, as King of France (1380-1422). 1381: Peasants Revolt (Wat Tyler's Rebellion, the Great Rising) spread across much of England.			1382: John Wycliffe (c.1320-1384) completes his translation into English of the Vulgate Bible.	Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1342-1400) begins work on The Canterbury Tales.
1390	1399: Henry IV, grandson to Edward III, succeeds Richard II as King of England (1399-1413); he is the first of a line of three kings from the house of Lancaster.		1390s: First evidence of knitting (Buxtehude Altarpiece, Hamburg).		1397: Manuel Chrysoloras (c.1355-1415) arrives in Florence from Constantinople to teach Greek, thus beginning a wave of Greek scholarship in Northern Italy.
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1400
1410	1413: Henry V succeeds his father, Henry IV, as King of England (1413-1422).	1415: English longbows defeated a much larger French army at the Battle of Agincourt, with notably few casualties suffered by the English. Henry became heir to the French throne, uniting the two kingdoms. (These events will later be dramatized in Shakespeare’s Henry V (composed c.1599).		1410: John Hus (c.1369-1415), now seen as an early reformer of the Catholic church, was excommunicated by Pope Alexander V (one of three popes at the time...), and eventually burned at the stake. 1414-1418: Council of Constance ended the Great Schism between the papacies.
1420	1422: Henry VI succeeds his father, Henry V, as King of England (1422-1461). 1422: Charles VII ("the Victorious"), succeeds his father Charles VI, as King of France (1422-1461), but is crowned in Reims (the traditional coronation site for the Valois kings) only in 1429 after the military successes of Joan of Arc.	1429-31: Brief military career of Joan of Arc (1412-1431) ends at the stake in (English-controlled) Rouen.
1430					c.1439: Johannes Gutenberg (c.1398-1468) invented the printing of written material using moveable type. Work on the 42-line Bible began in 1452 (180 copies were printed by 1455; 48 of these, in whole or in part, still exist).	1436: The Florence Cathedral is finished, with the huge dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), who is also credited with inventing linear perspective in art in the early 15th century.
1440
1450		1453: Battle of Castillon marked the end of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453); this solidified the English/French border to roughly as it now stands and increased the centralization of France as a nation. 1453 (May 29): The Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks; many Greek-speaking scholars emigrate to the west, while the city becomes the capital of the Ottoman empire. 1455-85: The Wars of the Roses — a series of battles between the houses of York (white rose) and Lancaster (red rose), and concluding with the defeat of the Yorkist Richard III by the Lancastrian Henry VII, who united the two houses by marrying Elizabeth of York; thus began the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603).				1452: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in Tuscany. 1452: Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) finishes the Gates of Paradise for the Baptistery in Florence. [wp]
1460	1461: Edward IV succeeds Henry VI as King of England (1461-1483); he is the first of three kings from the house of York. 1461: Louis XI ("the Prudent"), succeeds his father Charles VII, as King of France (1461-1483).
1470	1470: Brief reign of Edward V (two months), followed by the return of Edward IV.				1476: William Caxton (c.1415-c.1492) sets up the first printing press in London; his first publication was Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
1480	1483: Richard III, succeeds his brother, Edward IV, as King of England (1483-1485); the last Yorkist King and the last of the Plantagenet line that began with Henry II (reigned 1154-1189). 1483: Charles VIII ("the Affable"), succeeds his father Louis XI, as King of France (1483-1498). 1485: Henry VII succeeds Richard III as King of England (1485-1509), first of the Tudor monarchs.				1486: Italian polymath Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) composes his Oration on the Dignity of Man.	1483: Birth of Raphael. [wp]
1490	1498: Louis XII ("the Father of the People"), a great-grandson of Charles V, is King of France (1498-1515).	1492: Columbus's first voyage to the New World.		1492: Expulsion or forced conversion of the Jews of the Iberian peninsula. 1496: The Florentine Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) publishes a Latin translation of the first complete works of Plato.
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1500	1509: Henry VIII succeeds his father, Henry VII, as King of England (1509-1547).	1507: The German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller publishes his famous *Universalis Cosmographia*, a map depicting the the entire earth, including the recently named Americas.				1504: Michelangelo (1475-1564) completes his statue of David in Florence. 1506: Raphael (1483-1520) completes "Madonna of the Pinks." 1508-12: Michelangelo paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (Rome).
1510	1515: Francis I ("the Father and Restorer of Letters"), a great-great-grandson of Charles V, is King of France (1515-1547).			1513: Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) writes The Prince. 1517: Martin Luther (1483-1546) nails a copy of his "Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" on the door of the Wittenberg Castle. In hindsight, this marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.	1516: Thomas More (1478-1535) publishes his Utopia.	1516-19: At the invitation of Francis I, Leonardo da Vinci moves to north-central France, where he spends the last years of his life.
1520		1520's: The first loaves and tablets of chocolate from Mexico arrive in Spain.		1522: Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466-1536) publishes his Greek edition of the New Testament.	1522: Publication of Luther’s translation into German of the New Testament.	1520: Death of Raphael.
1530	1533: Catherine de' Medici (1519-1589), daughter of Lorenzo II de Medici (of Florence) marries Henry, the second son of Francis I, becoming the Queen Consort in 1547 when Henry II ascends the throne.			1535: The Catholic Thomas More, for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England (by means of the Supremacy Act of 1534, which marked Henry's break with Rome), is executed in the Tower of London. 1536: Christian reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) publishes The Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1536-1541: Henry VIII begins the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, Wales, and Ireland.	1534: Publication of Luther’s translation into German of the entire Bible. 1539: Publication of the first authorized English translation of the Bible.
1540	1547: The Protestant Edward VI succeeds his father, Henry VIII, as King of England (1547-1553). 1547: Henry II, succeeds his father, Francis I, as King of France (1547-1559).		1543: Publication of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium [On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres], just before his death.	1549: The first edition of the *Book of Common Prayer* is published (written primarily by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury).
1550	1553: The Catholic Mary I ("Bloody Mary") succeeds her half-brother, Edward VI, as Queen of England (1553-1558). 1558: The Protestant Elizabeth I succeeds her half-sister, Mary I, as Queen of England (1558-1603). 1559: Francis II, a frail fifteen-year-old, succeeds his father, Henry II, as King of France (1559-1560), but dies within 18 months.
1560	1560: Charles IX, a ten-year-old, succeeds his brother, Francis II, as King of France (1560-1574). His mother, Catherine de Medici, serves as Regent.				1564: Birth of William Shakespeare (1564-1616).	1564: Michelangelo dies in Rome (b. 1475). 1564: Tuileries Palace is completed for Catherine de' Medici.
1570	1574: Henry III, succeeds his brother, Charles IX, as King of France (1574-1589). He was the fourth son of Henry II and Catherine de Medici, who continues as an informal Regent.		1572: A new star (what today would be called a "supernova") appears in the constellation of Cassiopeia (thus changing Aristotle’s “unchanging heaven”). 1577: a Comet is observed and is clearly shown to be “beyond the moon”.	1572 (Aug 24): The bells of St-Germain-L'Auxerrois, just to the east of the Louvre palace, announced the beginning of what has become known as the St. Bartholomew‘s Day Massacre during which thousands of French Protestants (known as Huguenots) were slaughtered. There were targeted assassinations of many prominent Huguenots who had recently gathered in Paris for the wedding of Protestant Henry III of Navarre (later to be Henry IV of France) to the King's sister, Margaret, and the killing quickly spread from there. Catherine de Medici is traditionally viewed as the instigator.
1580	1589: Henry IV ("the Good King"), a grand-nephew of Francis I, is King of France (1589-1610).		1580: Tycho Brahe’s observatory is built. 1582: Pope Gregory XIII signs the decree introducing the Gregorian Calendar, eliminating 10 days (for Spain, Portugal, and Poland: October 5-14. Calendar reform was completed in Europe with Greece in 1923.
1590				1592: Death of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592). 1598: Edict of Nantes guarantees religious freedom for Protestants in France.		1595: The Grand Gallery (built for Henry IV) connects the Louvre and Tuileries Palaces.
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1600	1600: Henry IV of France marries Marie de' Medici (1575-1642), having annulled his first marriage. 1603: James I, the first of the Stuart dynasty, succeeds Elizabeth I as King of England (1603-1625); he had been King of Scotland since 1567, and in 1603 the two crowns were united in his person. 1605 (Nov. 5): The Catholic Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) attempts to blow up Parliament, but is instead discovered, caught, tortured, and executed, although the wily fellow escaped further torments by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck.		1601: Death of Tycho Brahe (born 1546). 1609: Galileo begins his telescopic observations of the heavens.
1610	1610: Henry IV is assassinated, and his nine-year-old son, Louis XIII ("the Just"), aged nine years, succeeds as King of France (1610-1643). His mother, Marie de' Medici, serves as Regent. 1615: Louis XIII marries Anne of Austria (1601-1666), a Hapsburgian Spanish princess; both were fourteen. Anne will later serve as regent for her four-year-old son, Louis XIV.	1618-48: The Thirty Years’ War begins with the Second Defenestration of Prague.	1610: Galileo publishes his astronomical findings (Sidereus Nuncius; The Starry Messenger).	1610: King Henry IV of France assassinated by a fanatical Catholic. 1611: Publication of the King James Bible.		1607: The Pont Neuf (“new bridge”), now the oldest bridge in Paris, is built. 1607-08: The first recorded Frost Fair held on the Thames in London. A total of seven major fairs were held between then and 1814. The freezing of the river was by the unusually cold weather (the Little Ice Age) and the narrow spans of the old London bridge.
1620	1625: Charles I succeeds his father, James I, as King of England (1625-1649).			1620: Publication of the Novum Organum by Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a "new instrument" for doing science.		1621-30: Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), one of the greatest artists of his day, paints the Marie de' Medici Cycle to hang in her Luxembourg Palace (now hanging in the Louvre).
1630			1630: Death of Johannes Kepler (born 1571).
1640	1643: Louis XIV ("the Sun King") succeeds his father, Louis XIII, as King of France (1643-1715). 1649: Charles I is beheaded by an irritated Parliament, beginning the English Commonwealth (the English Interregnum), with Oliver Cromwell as "Lord Protector," followed briefly by his son Richard (1649-1660).	1643: Coffee arrives in Paris; an Armenian by the name of Pascal will open the first coffee stand in 1672 (at the St-Germaine fair). 1648: End of the Thirty Years’ War with the Peace of Westphalia.	1642: Death of Galileo (born 1564) and birth of Newton.	1641: René Descartes (1596-1650) publishes, in Latin, his Meditations on First Philosophy. 1647: George Fox (1624-91), founder of the Religious Society of Friends (= Quakers) begins his public preaching.
1650		Significant cooling in Europe (an episode of the "Little Ice Age"). 1651: Coffee arrives in London. c.1657: Tea arrives in London; the East India Company will begin to import it in 1669.	1656 (Christmas Day): Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens devises the first pendulum clock, increasing time-keeping accuracy a 100-fold.	1656: Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) is expelled from his Jewish community in Amsterdam.
1660	1660: Charles II, son of Charles I, is restored as King of England (1660-1685).	1666 (Sep 2-5): The Great Fire of London burns for three days, destroying most of the City north of the Thames. [wp]		1661: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) publishes Leviathan, in which he develops a mechanistic view of human beings and of human society forming by way of a "social contract".	1660: Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) begins his diary (until 1669). [wp] 1660: Birth of Hans Sloane (1660-1753), whose collections formed the basis for both the British Library and the British Museum. 1667: John Milton (1608-1674) publishes Paradise Lost.
1670			1675: Christian Huygens (see: 1656) devises a spiral balance spring to replace the pendulum on clocks, allowing for the development of pocket watches. 1675: The Royal Observatory (Greenwich, England) is founded.
1680	1685: James II succeeds his father, Charles II, as King of England (1685-1688), but his Catholicism worries Parliament, which invites his daughter and her husband to the throne. 1688: William (III of England and Ireland) and Mary of Orange succeed her father, James II, as Co-Regents of England (1689-1702) (Mary dies in 1694).		1687: Publication of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (commonly referred to as his Principia).
1690
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1700	1702: Anne, the last of the Stuart dynasty and the daughter of James II, succeeds William III as Queen of Great Britain (1702-1707). 1707: George I succeeds Anne as King of Great Britain (1707-1727), first of the Hannover dynasty.
1710	1715: Louis XV ("the Beloved") succeeds his great-grandfather, Louis XIV, as King of France (1715-1774). Because he is only five years-old, France is ruled by the Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, until 1723 — this period (1715-23) is known as the French Regency.
1720	1727: George II succeeds his father, George I as King of Great Britain (1727-1760).		1727: Death of the great alchemist and theologian Isaac Newton (born 1642).
1730
1740
1750					1755: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) publishes his Dictionary of the English Language — a labor of nine years.
1760	1760: George III succeeds his grandfather, George II, as King of The United Kingdom (1760-1820); Great Britain and Ireland were united in 1801.
1770	1774: Louis XVI ("the Restorer of the French Liberty") succeeds his father, Louis XV, as King of France (1774-1792).	Significant cooling in Europe (an episode of the "Little Ice Age").
1780	1789 (July 12): The Bastille in Paris is stormed by a mob; thus began the French Revolution.
1790	1792-1804: The First Republic (of France).					1793: The French National Assembly opens the Palais du Louvre as an art museum open to the public — the first in the world, and still one of the largest.
[1200] [1300] [1400] [1500] [1600] [1700] [1800]
	Politics	Geography/War	Science/Technology	Philosophy/Religion	Literature	Arts
1800	1804: Napoleon I ("the Great") is Emperor of France (1804-1814).
1810
1820	1820: George IV succeeds his father, George III, as King of The United Kingdom (1820-1830).
1830	1830: William IV succeeds his brother, George IV as King of Great Britain (1830-1837). 1834 (Oct. 16): Burning of Parliament, from an accidental fire, resulting in its nearly complete destruction, as well as in a beautiful set of paintings by J. M. W. Turner, one of which can be viewed in the Tate Britain. 1837: Queen Victoria, granddaughter to George III, succeeds William IV as Queen of Great Britain (1837-1901) and Empress of India (1876-1901).
1840
1850		Significant cooling in Europe (an episode of the "Little Ice Age").	1851: Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace (London: May 1-Oct 15). [wp]
1860		1853-70: Haussmann conducts major renovations of Paris, creating broad boulevards, new parks, and additional suburbs. [wp]
1870
1880			1883: Distinct time-zones are established in the United States. 1889: Exposition Universelle in Paris, featuring the Eiffel Tower. [wp]
1890

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