1042 -  Edward The Confessor. Last Anglo-Saxon king.

1066 - Norman Conquest. William The Conqueror 1st Norman king of England.

1077 - Bayeux Tapestry.

1087 - Death of William The Conqueror. He is succeeded by William II.

1095 - 1st Crusade. Beginning of High Middle Ages.

1100 - William II is killed.
Henry I succeeds him.

1086 - Domesday Book.

1215 - John signs the Magna Carta.
1216 - John dies after having lost possessions in Normandy and France.  Henry III is crowned.

1258 - Parliament is created by a group of rebel nobles.

1274 - Thomas Aquinas' work, Summa Theologiae is published.

1307 - King Edward II is crowned.
1311 - The Great Famine.

1327 - Start of King Edward III’s reign.

1337 - The Hundred Years War between England and France begins.

1347 - First outbreak of the Black Death.

1377 - Richard II takes the crown.

1350-1400 - Sir Gawain and the Green  Knight is written by “The Pearl Poet”.

1382 -  John Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible.
1387-1390 - Geoffrey Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales.

1509 - Henry VIII succeeds Henry VII.

1535 - Execution of Thomas More.

1547 - Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by nine-year-old Edward VI.
1553 - Mary I “Bloody Mary” deposes Lady Jane Grey and becomes queen. She fervently opposed  Protestantism.
1558 - Elizabeth I becomes queen.

1516 - Sir Thomas More publishes Utopia. (Book II was written a year before).

1557 - Tottel’s Miscellany  by Thomas Wyatt  and Henry Howard.

1581 - Sir Philip Sydney composes Astrophil and Stella and Defense of Poesy (published respectively  in 1591 and 1595).

1590-96 - Edmund Spenser publishes The Faerie Queene.
1595 - Amoretti, a collection of sonnets by E. Spenser, is published.

1603 - James I coronation.

1605 - Gunpowder Plot.

1616 - Death of William Shakespeare.

1620 - Puritan pilgrims go to
America on the Mayflower.
1625 - Charles I access to the throne.
1629 - Charles I dissolves parliament and rules on his own for 11 years.

1642 - Civil War starts.

1649 - Execution of Charles I. End of the war and beginning of the Republic, ruled by Oliver Cromwell (Puritan).

1658 - O. Cromwell dies.

1660 - Restoration of the monarchy with Charles II.

1665 - Plague.
1666 - Great Fire of London.

1685 - James II’s reign starts. He becomes a very unpopular king.

1688 - Glorious Revolution. William of Orange, invited by the English parliament invades England.

1604-11 - King James “authorised” version of the Bible.
1605-07 - Ben Jonson writes  Volpone (printed in 1607).
1609 - First publications of the 154 Shakespeare’s Sonnets (written 19 years before).
1616 - The Forest, collection of poems by Ben Jonson including To Penhurst, is printed.

1633 - First publication of the poems of John Donne, after his decease. The Temple, collection of George Herbert’s poems was also published, posthumously.

1648 - Robert Herrick publishes Hesperides which includes Corinna’s Going A-Maying.
1649 - Publication of To Lucasta by R. Lovelace, including To Althea, from Prison.
1650-55 - Silex Scintillans l and ll by Henry Vaughan are published.
1650s - Andrew Marvell wrote some of his best known poems around this decade. To his Coy Mistress, Upon Appleton house, etc.

1667 - 1st publication of Paradise Lost by John Milton with ten books.

1674 - 2nd publication of Paradise Lost in twelve books.
1681 - Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden is published.

1688 - Publication of  Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.

1702 - Anne succeeds William III.
1707 - Act of Union of England and Scotland.

1714 - George I 1st Hanover monarch.

1721 - Robert Walpole becomes the 1st Prime Minister.
1727 - George I is succeeded by George II.

1739 - War against Spain begins.
1742 - Prime Minister Robert Walpole resigns.

1756 - Seven Years’ War against France starts.
1760 - George III becomes king.
1763 - The Seven Years War ends.
1765 - Stamp Act.

1775 - American War of Independence begins.

1783 - The Independence War ends. The colonies become independent.

1719 - Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe.

1751 - First publication of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

1770 - The Deserted Village by  Oliver Goldsmith is published.

1783 - George Crabbe publishes The Village.
1785 - William Cowper publishes The Task.

1801 - Act of Union. The United Kingdom is born.
1805 - Trafalgar battle. English defeat Spanish and French.
1807 - The slave trade is abolished in the UK.

1815 - The battle of Waterloo.

1820 - George IV succeeds George III.

1830 - George IV dies. William IV becomes king.
1832 - Great Reform Act.
1833 - Slavery is abolished through the British Empire.
1837 - William IV dies. Victoria becomes queen.
1840 - Queen Victoria marries Albert.
1842 - Children and women are banned from working in underground mines.
1847 - Irish potato famine begins. A law prohibits that women and children work more than 10 hours a day.
1851 - The Great Exhibition.
1854 - Crimean War Begins.
1857 - Indian Mutiny.
1861 - Prince Albert dies.
1867 - Second Reform Act.

1838 - Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist is published.

1843 - Charles Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol.

1847 - Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre.

1859 - On The Origin of Species  by Charles Darwin is published.
1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published by Lewis Carroll.