Early modern history timeline
The Renaissance, the age of sail and the revolutions of the early modern world.
132 events, oldest first.
Timeline of Early modern history
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1509
Henry VIII becomes king
He was 17 and had only become heir when his older brother Arthur died.
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1517
Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses
Whether he really nailed them to a church door is still debated by historians.
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1517
The Ottomans conquer Cairo
The conquest made the Ottoman sultan the guardian of Mecca and Medina.
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1518
The Strasbourg dancing plague
Hundreds of people danced uncontrollably for days, and the cause is still debated.
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1519
Hernán Cortés arrives in Tenochtitlan
The Aztec capital was larger than any city in Spain at the time.
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1519
Leonardo da Vinci dies in France
He spent his last years as a guest of King Francis I, with the Mona Lisa still in his possession.
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1520
Suleiman the Magnificent becomes sultan
He ruled the Ottoman Empire for 46 years, longer than any other sultan.
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1520
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
Henry VIII and Francis I spent lavishly trying to outshine each other at the summit.
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1521
Luther defies the Diet of Worms
He is said to have declared, 'Here I stand, I can do no other.'
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1526
The Mughal Empire is founded
Its founder Babur was descended from both Genghis Khan and Timur.
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1526
The Ottomans win the Battle of Mohács
The Hungarian king drowned while fleeing the battle.
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1526
Tyndale's English New Testament is printed
Much of the King James Bible's New Testament wording comes from Tyndale.
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1527
Rome is sacked by imperial troops
Unpaid soldiers of Charles V ran riot in the city for months.
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1529
The Ottomans first besiege Vienna
Heavy rain forced Suleiman to leave much of his siege artillery behind.
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1532
Pizarro captures the Inca emperor Atahualpa
Atahualpa offered to fill a room with gold in exchange for his freedom.
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1534
Henry VIII breaks with the Pope
The Act of Supremacy made the king head of the Church of England.
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1536
Anne Boleyn is executed
Henry VIII had a skilled swordsman brought over from Calais for the execution.
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1536
The Dissolution of the Monasteries begins
Henry VIII closed hundreds of monasteries and seized their wealth.
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1540
The Jesuits are founded
The order became famous for its schools and missionaries.
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1542
Mary, Queen of Scots becomes queen
She became queen when she was just six days old.
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1545
The Council of Trent opens
It met on and off for 18 years to respond to the Protestant Reformation.
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1545
The Mary Rose sinks
Henry VIII's favourite warship sank in the Solent as he watched from the shore.
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1547
Ivan the Terrible is crowned tsar
He was the first ruler to be crowned 'Tsar of All Russia'.
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1555
The Peace of Augsburg
Each German ruler could now choose whether his lands were Catholic or Lutheran.
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1556
Akbar becomes Mughal emperor
He probably couldn't read, yet he built up a vast library.
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1556
Philip II becomes King of Spain
The Philippines are named after him.
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1558
Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England
She never married, and was celebrated as the 'Virgin Queen'.
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1561
St Basil's Cathedral is completed in Moscow
The story that Ivan the Terrible blinded its architects is almost certainly a myth.
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1565
St. Augustine, the oldest US city, is founded
It was founded 42 years before the English settled Jamestown.
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1571
The Battle of Lepanto
Miguel de Cervantes fought in it and lost the use of his left hand.
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1582
The Gregorian calendar is introduced
Ten days were skipped: 4 October was followed directly by 15 October.
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1586
The obelisk in St Peter's Square is moved
It took around 900 men and 140 horses to move it.
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1587
Mary, Queen of Scots is executed
She had been held prisoner in England for about 19 years.
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1587
The 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke is founded
When supply ships returned, the colonists had vanished, leaving only the word 'CROATOAN'.
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1588
The Spanish Armada sails against England
Storms wrecked more of its ships than English guns did.
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1590
Toyotomi Hideyoshi unifies Japan
He rose from peasant origins to rule the whole country.
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1591
Venice's Rialto Bridge is completed
For centuries it was the only bridge across Venice's Grand Canal.
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1596
Sir John Harington invents a flushing toilet
He installed one for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I.
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1598
Shah Abbas makes Isfahan his capital
A Persian saying called Isfahan 'half the world'.
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1598
The Edict of Nantes grants religious tolerance
It gave French Protestants the right to worship after decades of religious war.
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1600
The East India Company is founded
At its height, it had a private army larger than Britain's own.
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1602
The Dutch East India Company is founded
It is often called the world's first publicly traded company.
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1603
Kabuki theatre is born in Kyoto
It was founded by a woman, Izumo no Okuni, though women were later banned from performing.
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1603
Tokugawa Ieyasu becomes shogun
His family ruled Japan for over 250 years, largely closed off from the outside world.
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1605
The Gunpowder Plot is foiled
Guy Fawkes was caught guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath Parliament.
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1607
Jamestown is founded in Virginia
Pocahontas, a Powhatan girl from the area, later visited London and met King James I.
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1608
Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec City
It is one of the oldest European settlements in North America.
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1610
Santa Fe is founded
It is the oldest state capital in the United States.
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1613
The Globe Theatre burns down
A cannon fired during a performance of Henry VIII set the thatched roof alight.
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1613
The Romanov dynasty begins
The Romanovs ruled Russia for more than 300 years.
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1616
Pocahontas visits London
She attended a royal masque and was presented to King James I.
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1616
The Blue Mosque is completed
It is called the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles inside.
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1618
The Second Defenestration of Prague
Two royal governors and their secretary were thrown from a castle window and survived, sparking the Thirty Years' War.
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1619
The first enslaved Africans arrive in Virginia
Around 20 Africans were brought to Point Comfort on an English privateer ship.
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1620
The Pilgrims land at Plymouth
They crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower, a voyage of about two months.
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1621
The Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving
The feast lasted three days and featured venison - turkey may not have been on the menu.
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1626
The Dutch buy Manhattan
The price, 60 guilders of goods, is often quoted as about $24.
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1630
Boston is founded
Puritan settlers named it after a town in Lincolnshire.
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1632
Construction of the Taj Mahal begins
Shah Jahan built it as a tomb for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
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1636
Harvard University is founded
Founded by a vote of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.
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1637
Tulip mania collapses in the Netherlands
At the peak of the craze, a single rare tulip bulb could cost as much as a house.
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1639
Japan closes its borders to most foreigners
Only Dutch and Chinese traders were allowed, on strict terms.
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1642
The English Civil War begins
King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham.
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1643
Louis XIV becomes king aged four
His reign of 72 years is the longest of any European monarch.
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1644
The Ming dynasty falls
The Qing dynasty that replaced it ruled China until 1912.
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1645
Sweden's official gazette is first published
Post- och Inrikes Tidningar is still published today, though now only online.
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1647
Parliament bans Christmas celebrations
Puritans saw the festivities as wasteful; Christmas came back after the Restoration.
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1648
The Thirty Years' War ends
The Peace of Westphalia is often seen as the birth of the modern system of sovereign states.
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1649
Charles I is executed
He wore two shirts so he wouldn't shiver in the cold and appear afraid.
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1652
The Dutch found Cape Town
It began as a supply station for ships sailing to Asia.
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1653
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector
He refused the title of king when Parliament offered it to him.
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1660
Samuel Pepys begins his diary
During the Great Fire, he buried his Parmesan cheese in the garden to save it.
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1660
The monarchy is restored under Charles II
Charles II reopened the theatres, which the Puritans had closed.
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1664
New Amsterdam becomes New York
The English renamed it after the Duke of York.
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1665
The Great Plague of London
Newton's university closed because of it, so he worked at home on gravity and calculus.
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1666
The Great Fire of London
It destroyed over 13,000 houses, yet only a handful of deaths were officially recorded.
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1679
The Habeas Corpus Act is passed
It protects people from being imprisoned without legal justification.
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1682
Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles
He reigned for 72 years, the longest of any monarch in European history.
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1682
Philadelphia is founded
William Penn chose a name meaning 'brotherly love' in Greek.
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1683
The Siege of Vienna is lifted
Legend says Vienna's bakers invented the croissant to celebrate - almost certainly a myth.
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1688
The Glorious Revolution
William of Orange and Mary II became joint monarchs, without a major battle in England.
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1689
The English Bill of Rights is passed
It limited royal power and inspired the later American Bill of Rights.
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1692
The Salem witch trials begin
Massachusetts later admitted the trials were wrong and paid compensation to families.
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1694
The Bank of England is founded
It was set up to raise money for King William III's war against France.
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1697
Peter the Great tours Western Europe
The Tsar travelled incognito and worked in a Dutch shipyard.
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1698
Scotland's Darien scheme is launched
The failed colony in Panama helped push Scotland into union with England.
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1701
Yale is founded
It was named after Elihu Yale, a merchant who donated books and goods.
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1703
Peter the Great founds St Petersburg
It replaced Moscow as Russia's capital for around two centuries.
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1704
The Battle of Blenheim
The Duke of Marlborough was rewarded with Blenheim Palace, later Churchill's birthplace.
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1706
Benjamin Franklin is born
He was the 15th of 17 children.
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1707
The Act of Union creates Great Britain
It united the parliaments of England and Scotland.
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1709
Peter the Great defeats Sweden at Poltava
The victory made Russia a major European power.
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1710
St Paul's Cathedral is completed
Christopher Wren rebuilt it after the Great Fire of London.
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1718
Blackbeard's flagship runs aground
The wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge was found off North Carolina in 1996.
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1718
New Orleans is founded
It was named after the Duke of Orléans, regent of France.
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1720
The South Sea Bubble bursts
Isaac Newton lost a fortune in it.
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1721
Robert Walpole becomes the first prime minister
He was the first to live at 10 Downing Street.
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1732
Georgia, the last of the 13 colonies, is founded
It was named after King George II.
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1735
The Qianlong Emperor takes the throne
He reigned for about 60 years, then abdicated so as not to outrule his grandfather.
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1739
Nader Shah sacks Delhi
He carried off the jewelled Peacock Throne.
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1740
Frederick the Great becomes King of Prussia
He played the flute and composed more than 100 sonatas for it.
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1740
Maria Theresa inherits the Habsburg lands
She had 16 children, including Marie Antoinette.
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1745
Bonnie Prince Charlie lands in Scotland
His defeat at Culloden the next year was the last pitched battle on British soil.
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1746
The Battle of Culloden
The Jacobite army was defeated in under an hour.
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1751
Britain's Gin Act curbs the gin craze
Hogarth's print Gin Lane showed the drink's toll on London.
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1752
Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar
Britain was 170 years behind Catholic Europe, so 2 September was followed by 14 September.
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1752
Schönbrunn, the oldest zoo still running, opens
Vienna's zoo began as an imperial menagerie.
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1752
The Liberty Bell is cast
It cracked the first time it was rung after arriving in Philadelphia.
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1756
The Seven Years' War begins
It was fought on several continents and is sometimes called the first world war.
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1759
The British capture Quebec
Both commanders, Wolfe and Montcalm, died from wounds suffered in the battle.
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1762
Catherine the Great becomes empress
She was a German princess who became Russia's longest-ruling female leader.
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1763
The Seven Years' War ends
France gave up almost all of its North American territory.
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1765
Britain passes the Stamp Act
The tax on American paper goods sparked the cry 'No taxation without representation'.
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1770
The Boston Massacre
Future president John Adams defended the British soldiers in court.
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1773
The Boston Tea Party
Protesters dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.
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1773
The Pugachev Rebellion erupts in Russia
A Cossack named Pugachev claimed to be the murdered Tsar Peter III.
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1775
Daniel Boone blazes the Wilderness Road
The trail through the Cumberland Gap opened Kentucky to settlers.
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1775
Paul Revere's midnight ride
He never actually shouted 'The British are coming!'
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1776
The Declaration of Independence is adopted
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on its 50th anniversary.
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1776
Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense
The pamphlet sold over 100,000 copies within months.
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1777
The Battle of Saratoga
The American victory persuaded France to enter the war.
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1781
The British surrender at Yorktown
Legend says the British band played 'The World Turned Upside Down'.
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1787
The US Constitution is signed
Benjamin Franklin, aged 81, was its oldest signer.
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1788
The First Fleet arrives in Australia
Its 11 ships carried around 1,500 people, most of them convicts.
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1789
George Washington is inaugurated
By then he had only one of his own teeth left.
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1789
The Storming of the Bastille
Only seven prisoners were inside at the time.
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1791
The Haitian Revolution begins
It created the first nation founded by formerly enslaved people.
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1791
The US Bill of Rights is ratified
The first ten amendments protect freedoms like speech and religion.
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1793
Louis XVI is executed
He was a keen amateur locksmith.
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1798
Napoleon invades Egypt
He took around 160 scholars and scientists with him to study the country.
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1798
The Irish Rebellion
It led directly to the Act of Union joining Ireland to Great Britain.
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1799
Napoleon becomes First Consul
He seized power in a coup at the age of 30.
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