HISTORY OF THE WORLDSenior English

Important dates to know:

In order to understand the written word, one needs to know what was going on in the world at the time the writing took place.

This slide show will help you understand important time periods and people throughout history, thus increasing your ability to understand literary allusions.

3000 BCE: The Egyptians

2000 BCE: The Romans

Latin and Greek people to know:

Cicero Sappho

Homer:Wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey

Virgil—wrote The Aeneid

Ovid—wrote The Metamorphoses

Socrates-Plato-Aristotle

450 AD: Angles & Saxons invade Britain

891: The Anglo Saxon Chronicles were written

1066: The Battle of Hastings William The Conqueror (King William I of

England The Norman conquest was a pivotal event

in English history. It largely removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. This, in turn, brought about a transformation of the English language and the culture of England in a new era often referred to as Norman England.

The Royal Lineage…

William I William II (killed by an arrow while

hunting) Henry I (married Edith of Scotland,

uniting the British Isles) Maude Stephen Henry II (son of Maude and Geoffrey,

the Count of Anjou)

Royal Lineage, continued…

Henry II—married to Eleanor of Aquitaine Four sons:

Henry (died young) Richard Geoffrey JohnRichard became Richard the Lionhearted

John signed the Magna Carta in 1215

1260’s: Dante’s Divine Comedy

1342: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

1347: The Black Death

1455: Guttenberg’s Press

1479: Ferdinand & Isabella

1480: Spanish Inquisition

1. Catherine of Aragon Mary2. Anne Boleyn Elizabeth3. Jane Seymour Edward VI *4. Anne of Cleeves5. Catherine Howard6. Catherine Parr

• *** Lady Jane Grey• Div, beh, died, div, beh, survived

1485: Henry VIII

1558-1603: Queen Elizabeth I

1492: Columbus sails the ocean blue

1564-1616 William Shakespeare

1610: The King James Bible (see Psalms 46)

1682-1725Peter the Great of Russia

1700’s The Age of Enlightenment

ScienceMusicArtLiteratureGlobal expansionInventions

1804: Napoleon 1807: England abolishes slavery

1837-1901 Queen Victoria The Victorian Age

At 63 years and 7 months, her reign as the Queen lasted longer than that of any other British monarch, and is the longest of any female monarch in history. Her reign is known as the Victorian era, and was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military progress within the United Kingdom.

The sun never sets on the British Empire.

1900’s: Industrial Revolution

1914-1918: World War I

1917: Russian Revolution (end of the czars—Nicholas was the

last)

October 1929: Stock Market crash led to the Great Depression throughout the 1930’s

1939: Hitler’s rise to power and the beginning of World War II

December 7, 1941: “A date which will live in infamy”—Pearl Harbor attacked by the Japanese—U.S. joins the war.

1945: World War II ends 1953: DNA discovered 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first

human in space

1967: Neil Armstrong becomes the first American to walk on the surface of the moon

1961-1970: Vietnam War

1969: Woodstock

1972: Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States

1979: Iranian hostage situation

1960: John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1963: Lyndon Baynes Johnson 1968: Richard Millhouse Nixon 1973: Gerald R. Ford 1976: James Earl (Jimmy) Carter 1980: Ronald Reagan 1988: George Herbert Walker Bush 1992: William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton 2000: George Walker Bush 2008: Barack Hussein Obama

Lots more…

Of course, this is just a brief synopsis of major events and people. You’ll learn a lot more as we work our way through all the literature, drama, and poetry of these years…