TIME LINE

1477 – Printing (movable type) first practiced in England

1485 – War of the Roses ends – Henry VII inaugurates the Tudor Dynasty

1509 – Accession of Henry VIII

1517 – Martin Luther’s Wittenberg thesis – beginning of the Reformation

1534 – Henry VIII declares himself Head of the English Church

1547 – Henry VIII dies; Edward VI accedes

1553 – Edward VI dies; Mary accedes

1558 – Mary dies; Elizabeth I accedes

1564 – Shakespeare born at Stratford upon Avon

1576 – First public playhouse built: “The Theatre”  

1580 – Drake completes voyage around the world

1588 – Defeat of the Spanish Armada

1591 – Titus Andronicus

1593 – The Taming of the Shrew

1595 – Swan Theatre opens in Southwark

1596 – Henry IV Part 1

1599 – Globe Theatre opens in Southwark

1600 - Hamlet

1601 – Twelfth Night

1603 – Elizabeth I dies ending Tudor dynasty; James 1 of Scotland accedes beginning the Jacobean period

1605 – King Lear

1608 – Antony and Cleopatra

1609 – The Winter’s Tale

1610 – The Tempest

1616 – Shakespeare dies

1623 – First Folio published