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