Main historical events of Old English and Middle English periods and their linguistic consequences

Here is a list of important dates in the development of the English language. The selection of events is my own, and the dates are approximate in some cases, but it gives at least some idea of the time-scales involved, and puts the developments into some sort of perspective.

c.6000 BC	Britain cut off from continental Europe by English Channel		Before English
c.5000 BC	Proto-Indo-Europeans living in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
c.1000 BC	Germanic Indo-European tribes living in parts of modern-day Germany
c.500 BC	Celts inhabit much of Europe, and beginning to colonize the British Isles
55 BC	First Roman raids on Britain under Julius Caesar
43 AD	Roman occupation of Britain under Emperor Claudius (beginning of Roman rule of Britain)
410-436	Roman withdrawal from Britain
c.450	Anglo-Saxon settlement (Angles, Frisians, Saxons, Jutes) of Britain begins		Old English
450-480	Earliest Old English inscriptions
	St. Augustine arrives in Britain (beginning of Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons)
c.600	Anglo-Saxon language covers most of modern-day England
c.660	“Cжdmon's Hymn” composed in Old English
	The Venerable Bede writes “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” (in Latin)
	Viking raids of Britain begin
c.800	Old English epic poem “Beowulf” composed
	The Danes launch full-scale invasion and occupy Northumbria
	Alfred the Great becomes king of Wessex, encourages English prose and translation of Latin works
	“The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” is begun
	Danelaw established, dividing Britain into Anglo-Saxon south and Danish north
	Charles II of France grants Normandy to the Viking chief Hrolf the Ganger (the beginning of Norman French)
c.1000	The oldest surviving manuscript of “Beowulf” dates from this period
	The Norman conquest under William the Conqueror		Middle English
	“Domesday Book” compiled
c.1100	London becomes de facto capital of England
c.1150	The oldest surviving manuscripts in Middle English date from this period
	Eleanor of Aquitaine, French wife of Henry II, becomes Queen Consort of England
	“The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” discontinued
	Oxford University established
c.1180	The “Ormulum” text of the monk Orm completed
	King John loses the province of Normandy to France
	Cambridge University established
1349-50	The Black Death kills one third of the British population
	The Statute of Pleading replaces French with English as the language of law (although records continue to be kept in Latin)
	English is used in English Parliament for the first time
c.1370	William Langland writes “Piers Plowman”
	John Wycliffe publishes his English translation of “The Bible”
	English replaces Latin as main language in schools (except Universities of Oxford and Cambridge)
c.1388	Chaucer begins “The Canterbury Tales”
	Henry IV becomes first English-speaking monarch since before the Conquest
c.1450	The Great Vowel Shift begins		Early Modern English
	William Caxton establishes the first English printing press
c.1500	Start of English Renaissance
	William Tyndale prints his English translation of the New Testament of “The Bible”
	“The Great Bible” published
	First version of “The Book of Common Prayer” published
c.1590	William Shakespeare writes his first plays
	Robert Cawdrey publishes the first English dictionary, “A Table Alphabeticall”
	Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, established
	The Authorized, or King James Version, of “The Bible” is published
	Death of William Shakespeare
	Publication of the first English-language newspaper, the “Courante” or “Weekly News”
	First Folio of Shakespeare’s works is published
	Publication of the first daily English-language newspaper, “The Daily Courant”, in London
	Samuel Johnson publishes his “Dictionary of the English Language”
	Britain wrests control of Canada from the French		Late Modern English
	Last native speaker of the Celtic Cornish language dies
	George Washington defeats Cornwallis at Yorktown and Britain abandons its American colonies
	British penal colony established in Australia
	First publication of “ The Times” newspaper in London
	Noah Webster publishes “The American Spelling Book”
	First English settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
	Lewis and Clark document exploration of routes to American West
	Noah Webster publishes his “The American Dictionary of the English Language”
	Abolition of slavery in the British Empire
	British colony established in new Zealand
	United States ends slavery after Civil War
	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) founded
	First edition of the “Oxford English Dictionary” is published
	India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain
	Sir Ernest Gowers’ “The Complete Plain Words” published
	Second edition of the “Oxford English Dictionary” is published

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