Timeline

1337-1453

Hundred Years War between England and France

1350-1550

Renaissance begins on Italian Peninsula; spreads north throughout Western Europe

1453

Fall of Constantinople, Turkey

1455

Treaty of Lodi among Milan, Naples, and Florence

1455-1485

War of the Roses between Houses of York and Lancaster, England

1469

Marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand in Spain

1486

Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man is published

1487

Portugal’s Bartholomew Dias sails around the tip of Africa

1498

Portugal’s Vasco da Gama reaches India

1504

Michelangelo’s David sculpture completed

1513

Machiavelli’s The Prince is published

1519-1522

Portugal’s Magellan leads Spanish Expedition circumnavigates the globe

1519-1521

Spain’s Cortes conquers the Aztecs in Mexico

1534

Henry VIII is declared head of the Church of England

1534

Anabaptists capture the city of Münster, Germany

1536

Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is published

1545-1563

Catholic reform movement’s Council of Trent is convened

1543

Copernicus’s On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres is published

1555

Peace of Augsburg—“whoever rules; his religion”—is signed by German princes

1598

Edict of Nantes is signed, establishing religious toleration in France

1610

Galileo’s Starry Messenger is published

1632

Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World is published

1637

Descartes’ Discourse on Method is published

1642-1646

English Civil War: Parliament tries to curb power of the monarchy, Church, nobility

1649-1660

The Commonwealth in England is established: King Charles I is executed

1651

Hobbes’s Leviathan is published

1660-1688

The Restoration in England of the monarchy: Charles II becomes king

1685

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France

1687

Newton’s Principia Mathematica is published

1688

The Glorious Revolution in England: King James II is expelled

1690

Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government is published

1696

Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious is published

1733

Voltaire’s Letters Concerning the English Nation are published

1733

Kay invents the flying shuttle

1740-1748

War of the Austrian Succession

1748

Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws is published

1751-1772

Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia is published

1756-1763

Seven Years War among nine great European countries

1759

Voltaire’s Candide is published

1762

Rousseau’s Emil and The Social Contract are published

1764

Beccaria’s Crime and Punishment is published

1770

d’Holbach’s System of Nature is published

1776

Smith’s Wealth of Nations is published

1789-1791

French Revolution, moderate phase

1791-1794

French Revolution, radical phase

1792

Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women is published

1793

Whitney invents the cotton gin

1794-1799

French Revolution, Thermidor, and the rise of Napoleon