Art & literature history timeline
Great books, paintings, plays and music, from cave art to the modern bestseller.
185 events, oldest first.
Timeline of Art & literature history
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c. 750 BC
Homer's Iliad is composed
It covers just a few weeks of the ten-year Trojan War.
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c. 600 BC
Sappho writes her poems on Lesbos
Only one of her poems survives complete.
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c. 430 BC
Herodotus writes his Histories
He is often called the 'father of history'.
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c. 429 BC
Sophocles' Oedipus the King is first performed
It lost the drama prize the year it was first performed.
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c. 94 BC
Sima Qian completes his history of China
He is often called the father of Chinese history.
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c. 19 BC
Virgil writes the Aeneid
Virgil asked for the unfinished poem to be burned, but Augustus refused.
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c. AD 405
Jerome completes the Latin Vulgate Bible
It remained the Catholic Church's official Bible for over 1,500 years.
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c. 1010
The Tale of Genji is written
Written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady at the Japanese court, it is often called the first novel.
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c. 1070
The Bayeux Tapestry is made
It is actually an embroidery, around 70 metres long.
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c. 1136
King Arthur's legend spreads across Europe
Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain made Arthur famous.
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c. 1305
Giotto paints the Scrovegni Chapel
Its starry blue ceiling and lifelike figures influenced Renaissance art.
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c. 1320
Dante completes the Divine Comedy
He finished it shortly before he died, in exile from his home city of Florence.
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c. 1353
Boccaccio writes the Decameron
Its 100 tales are told by friends escaping the Black Death.
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c. 1377
Robin Hood first appears in literature
The poem Piers Plowman mentions 'rhymes of Robin Hood'.
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c. 1387
Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales
He planned about 120 stories but finished only 24.
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1432
The Ghent Altarpiece is completed
It is one of the most stolen artworks in history.
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1434
Jan van Eyck paints the Arnolfini Portrait
Its tiny convex mirror reflects two extra figures, possibly including the painter.
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1452
Leonardo da Vinci is born
He was born a year before Constantinople fell to the Ottomans.
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1481
The Sistine Chapel is completed
Cardinals still gather there to elect each new pope.
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c. 1485
Botticelli paints The Birth of Venus
Venus arrives on a giant scallop shell, blown ashore by the wind gods.
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1485
Le Morte d'Arthur is printed
Thomas Malory wrote much of it while in prison.
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c. 1498
Leonardo paints The Last Supper
He experimented with a new technique that soon began to flake.
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c. 1499
Michelangelo carves his Pietà
It is the only work Michelangelo ever signed.
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c. 1503
Leonardo da Vinci begins the Mona Lisa
Leonardo kept working on it for years and never delivered it to the man who ordered it.
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1504
Michelangelo completes his David
He carved it from a block of marble that other sculptors had abandoned.
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1511
Raphael paints The School of Athens
Raphael painted himself among the great philosophers.
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1512
Michelangelo completes the Sistine Chapel ceiling
He painted it standing on scaffolding - not lying on his back, as is often claimed.
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1515
Albrecht Dürer makes his Rhinoceros woodcut
Dürer never saw the animal; he worked from a sketch and a written description.
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1533
Holbein paints The Ambassadors
A strange smear across the floor becomes a skull when viewed from the side.
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1564
William Shakespeare is born
He was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon; his exact birthday is unknown.
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1565
Bruegel paints Hunters in the Snow
It was one of a series of paintings showing the seasons of the year.
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1580
Montaigne publishes his Essays
He invented the essay as a form; the French 'essai' means 'attempt'.
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1594
Shakespeare's acting company is formed
Shakespeare acted with the Lord Chamberlain's Men as well as writing for them.
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1597
Shakespeare's Richard III is first published
It painted Richard as a villain, and his reputation never recovered.
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1599
The Globe Theatre opens
It was built with timber from an earlier playhouse, carried across the Thames.
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c. 1600
Shakespeare writes Hamlet
It is Shakespeare's longest play, at over 4,000 lines.
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1604
The first English dictionary is published
Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall defined about 2,500 'hard' words.
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1605
Don Quixote is published
Cervantes and Shakespeare both died in the same year.
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1607
Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo premieres
It is one of the earliest operas still regularly performed today.
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1611
The King James Bible is published
Some 47 scholars spent about seven years translating it.
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1616
William Shakespeare dies
In his will he famously left his wife his 'second-best bed'.
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1623
Shakespeare's First Folio is published
Without it, 18 of his plays, including Macbeth and The Tempest, might have been lost.
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1637
The first public opera house opens in Venice
For the first time, anyone who could buy a ticket could see an opera.
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1642
Rembrandt paints The Night Watch
Darkened varnish made it look like a night scene, but it is actually set in daytime.
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1656
Velázquez paints Las Meninas
Velázquez painted himself into the picture, standing at his easel.
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c. 1665
Vermeer paints Girl with a Pearl Earring
The 'pearl' is so large that some experts think it was polished tin or glass.
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1673
Molière collapses on stage
He was playing a hypochondriac in The Imaginary Invalid, and died hours later.
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1683
The Ashmolean, the first university museum, opens
It opened in Oxford with a collection that included a stuffed dodo.
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1704
The Arabian Nights is first translated in Europe
Aladdin and Ali Baba weren't in the original Arabic manuscripts.
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1716
Stradivari makes the 'Messiah' violin
It has been played so rarely that it still looks almost new.
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1717
Handel's Water Music is performed on the Thames
King George I enjoyed it so much he asked for it to be played three times.
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1719
Robinson Crusoe is published
It was partly inspired by Alexander Selkirk, a real Scottish castaway.
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1721
Bach dedicates the Brandenburg Concertos
The Margrave of Brandenburg apparently never had them performed.
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1725
Vivaldi publishes The Four Seasons
Each concerto came with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi himself, describing the season.
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1726
Gulliver's Travels is published
Jonathan Swift published it anonymously, and some readers took it as a real travel account.
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1733
Hogarth paints A Rake's Progress
Hogarth helped bring in copyright protection for engravings.
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1742
Handel's Messiah premieres in Dublin
Ladies were asked not to wear hooped skirts so that more people could fit in.
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1750
Johann Sebastian Bach dies
His music was largely neglected until Mendelssohn revived it about 80 years later.
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1751
Diderot's Encyclopédie begins publication
It aimed to collect all human knowledge and was repeatedly banned.
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1754
The word 'serendipity' is coined
Horace Walpole based it on a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip.
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1755
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary is published
It took Johnson about nine years and defined over 40,000 words.
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1756
Mozart is born
One of his baptismal names, Theophilus, he later rendered as 'Amadeus'.
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1759
The British Museum opens
It was the first national public museum in the world.
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1759
Voltaire's Candide is published
Voltaire published it anonymously, and it was quickly banned.
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1762
Rousseau publishes The Social Contract
It opens: 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.'
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1764
Mozart writes his first symphony
He was eight years old and living in London at the time.
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1768
Encyclopaedia Britannica first appears
It was first published in Edinburgh, in weekly instalments.
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1770
Ludwig van Beethoven is born
He was baptised in Bonn in December 1770; his exact birthday is unknown.
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1774
Goethe publishes The Sorrows of Young Werther
Fans copied the hero's blue coat and yellow waistcoat.
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1776
Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations
It introduced the idea of the 'invisible hand' of the market.
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1778
La Scala opens in Milan
It was built on the site of a church, Santa Maria alla Scala.
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1781
Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason
Kant reportedly never travelled more than about 100 km from his home city.
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1786
Robert Burns publishes his first book of poems
He had planned to emigrate to Jamaica, until the book became a hit.
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1791
Mozart dies
His exact cause of death is still debated.
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1791
Mozart's The Magic Flute premieres
Mozart died just over two months after its premiere.
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1792
Mary Wollstonecraft argues for women's rights
Her daughter was Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
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1793
The Louvre opens as a public museum
It opened during the French Revolution, putting the royal art collection on public view.
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1798
Wordsworth and Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads
It included The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
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1808
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony premieres
The premiere concert lasted about four hours, in a freezing cold hall.
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1812
The Brothers Grimm publish their fairy tales
The first edition contained far darker versions of stories like Cinderella.
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1813
Pride and Prejudice is published
Jane Austen sold the copyright for just £110.
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1818
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published
She began it aged 18 during a ghost-story contest with Lord Byron.
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1820
The Venus de Milo is found
A farmer found it buried on the Greek island of Milos.
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1821
Constable paints The Hay Wain
It made little impression in London but won a gold medal in Paris.
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1822
Champollion deciphers hieroglyphs
Legend says he cried 'I've got it!' and fainted.
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1824
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony premieres
He was so deaf that he had to be turned round to see the audience applauding.
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1828
Noah Webster publishes his American dictionary
Webster gave Americans spellings like 'color' and 'center'.
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c. 1831
Hokusai's The Great Wave is printed
Hokusai was around 70 years old when he made it.
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1835
Madame Tussaud opens her museum in London
She learned wax modelling in Paris and toured Britain for 33 years first.
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1836
The Luxor Obelisk is raised in Paris
France gave Egypt a clock in return for it, which reportedly never worked.
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1839
The word 'OK' is first printed
It began as a jokey abbreviation of 'oll korrect' in a Boston newspaper.
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1839
Turner paints The Fighting Temeraire
Turner called it his 'darling' and refused to sell it.
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1843
Charles Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol
The first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve.
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1843
Nelson's Column is completed
The four bronze lions at its base were added more than 20 years later.
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1845
Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven
He was paid only about $9 for it.
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1847
Jane Eyre is published
Charlotte Brontë first published it under the name Currer Bell.
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1847
Wuthering Heights is published
Emily Brontë published it under the name Ellis Bell.
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1851
Moby-Dick is published
It sold poorly, and Herman Melville died with it largely forgotten.
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1852
Roget's Thesaurus is published
Peter Mark Roget began it as a private list of words for his own use.
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1852
Uncle Tom's Cabin is published
It was the best-selling novel of the 19th century.
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1855
Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass
He paid to print the first edition himself.
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1857
Madame Bovary is published
Flaubert was put on trial for obscenity because of it, and acquitted.
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1862
Les Misérables is published
Victor Hugo reportedly telegraphed '?' to ask how it was selling, and his publisher replied '!'.
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1863
Manet's paintings shock the Salon des Refusés
The exhibition showed works rejected by the official Paris Salon.
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1863
The Winged Victory of Samothrace is found
Her head and arms have never been found.
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1865
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published
Lewis Carroll was an Oxford maths lecturer, and Alice was based on a real girl, Alice Liddell.
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1866
Crime and Punishment is published
Dostoevsky wrote it partly to pay off gambling debts.
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1868
Little Women is published
Louisa May Alcott based it on her own family.
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1869
War and Peace is completed
Tolstoy's wife Sophia copied out his drafts by hand several times.
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1870
Charles Dickens dies
He was halfway through The Mystery of Edwin Drood, so its ending will never be known.
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1871
The Royal Albert Hall opens
It was named after Prince Albert, who had died a decade earlier.
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1871
Whistler paints 'Whistler's Mother'
Its real title is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.
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1874
The first Impressionist exhibition
A critic mocked Monet's 'Impression, Sunrise', and the insult gave the movement its name.
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1875
The Paris Opera's Palais Garnier opens
The water tank beneath it inspired the underground lake in The Phantom of the Opera.
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1876
Melvil Dewey publishes his library classification
Dewey was so keen on simplified spelling that he shortened his own first name.
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1877
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake premieres
The premiere was poorly received; it became a classic only after a later revival.
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1878
Cleopatra's Needle arrives in London
The obelisk was already about 1,400 years old when Cleopatra was born.
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1881
Cleopatra's Needle is erected in Central Park
It is the twin of the obelisk on London's Embankment.
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1881
The Natural History Museum opens in London
Its building is covered in terracotta carvings of animals and plants.
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1883
Treasure Island is published
Robert Louis Stevenson began it with a map drawn for his stepson.
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1884
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published
Hemingway said all modern American literature comes from it.
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1884
The Washington Monument is completed
Its stone changes colour partway up, where building paused for over 20 years.
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1885
Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado premieres
It was set in Japan at a time when Japanese art was all the rage in London.
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1886
The Statue of Liberty is dedicated
Its copper skin was originally brown; it turned green over about 30 years.
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1887
Esperanto is published
Ludwik Zamenhof hoped a shared language would reduce conflict between peoples.
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1887
Sherlock Holmes first appears in print
Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor, and was paid just £25 for A Study in Scarlet.
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1889
Van Gogh paints The Starry Night
He painted it from memory during the day, at an asylum in Saint-Rémy.
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1890
The Picture of Dorian Gray is published
It was later used as evidence against Oscar Wilde in court.
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1891
Carnegie Hall opens in New York
Tchaikovsky conducted at the opening concerts.
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1892
Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker premieres
The premiere was not a success; it became a Christmas favourite decades later.
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1893
Edvard Munch paints The Scream
There are several versions; a pastel one sold for nearly $120 million.
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1894
The Jungle Book is published
Rudyard Kipling wrote it while living in Vermont.
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1897
Bram Stoker's Dracula is published
It came out the same year as the first Boston Marathon.
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1900
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is published
L. Frank Baum said he got the name Oz from a filing drawer labelled 'O-Z'.
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1902
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo opens
It holds more than 100,000 ancient objects.
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1902
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is published
Beatrix Potter had first printed it herself after publishers turned it down.
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1904
Peter Pan first appears on stage
J. M. Barrie later gave the rights to Great Ormond Street children's hospital.
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1904
Rodin's The Thinker is cast in bronze
It was first conceived as Dante, gazing down from The Gates of Hell.
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1907
Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Even his friends were shocked when they first saw it.
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1908
Gustav Klimt paints The Kiss
The Austrian state bought it before it was even finished.
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1911
The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre
It vanished for two years; the thief was an Italian handyman who had worked at the museum.
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1913
The Rite of Spring premieres in Paris
Stravinsky's ballet was so shocking that the audience broke into shouting and scuffles.
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1915
Kafka's The Metamorphosis is published
Kafka insisted the insect should never be drawn on the cover.
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1917
Marcel Duchamp submits a urinal as art
Signed 'R. Mutt' and titled Fountain, it was rejected by the show - but became hugely influential.
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1917
'OMG' is first used in a letter
Admiral John Fisher wrote 'O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)' in a letter to Winston Churchill.
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1919
The Bauhaus school is founded
Its teachers included the painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.
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1920
Agatha Christie's first novel is published
The Mysterious Affair at Styles introduced Hercule Poirot.
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1921
The play that coined the word 'robot' premieres
Karel Čapek's brother Josef suggested the word, from the Czech for 'forced labour'.
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1922
James Joyce's Ulysses is published
The whole novel takes place on a single day in Dublin.
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1924
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premieres
Its famous opening clarinet swoop began as a joke by the clarinettist in rehearsal.
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1925
The Great Gatsby is published
It sold poorly at first, and Fitzgerald died thinking himself a failure.
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1926
Winnie-the-Pooh is published
Pooh was named partly after Winnipeg, a real black bear at London Zoo.
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1928
The Oxford English Dictionary is completed
Planned to take about ten years, it took around seventy.
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1929
Magritte paints 'This is not a pipe'
The joke: it's a painting of a pipe, not a pipe.
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1929
New York's Museum of Modern Art opens
It opened just nine days after the Wall Street Crash.
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1931
Christ the Redeemer is completed in Rio
The statue is struck by lightning several times a year.
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1931
Dalí paints The Persistence of Memory
Dalí said the melting clocks were inspired by Camembert cheese softening in the sun.
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1932
Brave New World is published
Aldous Huxley's dystopia came out 17 years before Orwell's 1984.
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1935
Penguin publishes its first paperbacks
They cost sixpence, about the price of a packet of cigarettes.
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1937
Picasso paints Guernica
It was painted for the Paris World's Fair in about five weeks.
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1937
The Hobbit is published
Tolkien began it by scribbling 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' on an exam paper.
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1939
Frida Kahlo paints The Two Fridas
She painted it around the time of her divorce from Diego Rivera.
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1941
Mount Rushmore is completed
Each president's face is about 18 metres tall.
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1942
Edward Hopper paints Nighthawks
Hopper's wife Jo posed for the woman at the diner counter.
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1943
The Little Prince is published
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote it while living in New York.
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1947
The Diary of Anne Frank is published
Her father, Otto, was the only member of the family to survive.
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1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four is published
Orwell wrote much of it on the remote Scottish island of Jura.
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1950
Dr. Seuss coins the word 'nerd'
The word first appeared in his book If I Ran the Zoo.
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1950
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is published
C. S. Lewis and Tolkien were close friends at Oxford.
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1951
The Catcher in the Rye is published
J. D. Salinger refused every offer to turn it into a film.
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1952
Charlotte's Web is published
E. B. White drew on life on his own farm in Maine.
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1953
Matisse makes The Snail
Matisse made it from cut paper after illness left him unable to paint easily.
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1953
Waiting for Godot premieres
Godot never arrives.
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1955
The Guinness Book of Records is first published
It began after an argument at a shooting party over Europe's fastest game bird.
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1957
The Cat in the Hat is published
Dr. Seuss wrote it using only 236 different words.
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1958
The Atomium is unveiled in Brussels
It represents an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.
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1958
Things Fall Apart is published
Chinua Achebe's novel is one of the most widely read African books.
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1960
To Kill a Mockingbird is published
Harper Lee's friends gave her a year's wages so she could write full time.
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1962
Andy Warhol makes his Marilyn Diptych
He began his Marilyn pictures weeks after the star's death.
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1962
Andy Warhol shows his Campbell's Soup Cans
Each of the 32 canvases shows a different flavour.
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1963
The Mona Lisa is shown in the United States
Over a million people queued to see it in Washington and New York.
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1967
One Hundred Years of Solitude is published
Gabriel García Márquez pawned household items to post the manuscript.
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1973
The Sydney Opera House opens
Architect Jørn Utzon quit during construction and never saw his building finished.
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1988
A Brief History of Time is published
It stayed on the Sunday Times bestseller list for over four years.
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1997
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is published
Twelve publishers rejected it before Bloomsbury took it on.
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