|
Key: [*] Readings in Norton Anthology. Literary dates are usually of composition. Publication dates in parentheses (Note: many dates are disputed) . See also appendix to Oxford Companion to American Literature |
| -30,000? | First human migration to North America |
| -10,000? | First human archaeological traces in present US |
| -5,000 | Permanent human settlements in Southwest US |
| -3,000 | Epic of Gilgamesh |
| -2,000 | Rise of Maya civilization |
| -1193 | Greeks destroy Troy |
| -1000 | Basket maker Indians build pit houses in Southwest US |
| -850 | Homer, Iliad and Odyssey |
| -500 | Pueblo Indians introduce kiva and cliff dwellings |
| -300 | Temple of Sun built at Teotihucan, Mexico |
| 200 | Rise of Maya writing, astronomy, mathematics, calendar |
| 470 | Peak of Maya civilization in southern Mexico |
| 500 | Mound builder Indians in Ohio and Mississippi valley |
| 550 | Toltec kingdom in Mexico |
| 700 | Rise of Ghana as center of African gold, salt, and slave trade |
| 700 | Pueblo period I (houses above ground) (Southwest U. S.) |
| 900 | Mayas migrate to Yukatan |
| 900 | Pueblo period II (irrigation) |
| 950 | Chaco Canyon metropolis of 12 to 16 Pueblos |
| 964-1191 | New Maya empire |
| 981 | Norsemen discover Greenland |
| 1073 | Mesa Verde Pueblo center (Southwest Colorado) |
| 1100 | Sinchi civilization in Peru |
| 1100 | Pueblo period III (multi-story buildings) |
| 1200 | Cambridge university founded |
| 1200 | Rise of Mali, capital Timbuktu, incorporating Ghana |
| 1225 | Magna Carta signed |
| 1233 | Spanish Inquisition begins |
| 1290 | Expulsion of Jews from England |
| 1300 | Pueblo period IV (dispersal and migration) |
| 1306 | Expulsion of Jews from France |
| 1307 | Dante, Divine Comedy |
| 1325 | No Plays in Japan |
| 1348 | Boccacio, Decameron |
| 1364 | Aztecs construct capital, Tenochtitlan |
| c1387 | Chaucer, Canterbury Tales |
| 1430 | Modern English begins to replace Middle English |
| 1437 | Inca empire in Peru |
| 1454 | Gutenberg invents movable type |
| 1476 | Caxton prints first books in England |
| 1492 | Jews expelled from Spain |
| 1492 | First professional book publishers |
| 1492 | Columbus' first voyage of discovery |
| 1492 | Native American population n. of Rio Grande 1-2 mil. |
| 1495 | Syphilis epidemic in Europe |
| 1496 | Jews expelled from Portugal |
| 1499 | African trading stations of Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, others |
| 1500 | Bantu supremacy in Africa |
| 1501 | Rapid spread of printing in Europe |
| 1501 | Spanish introduce Negro slavery to West Indies |
| 1503 | da Vinci, Mona Lisa |
| 1507 | America named for explorer Amerigo Vespucci in map of South America |
| 1509 | Spanish settlers in New World urged to bring black slaves |
| 1509 | Henry VIII ascends throne of England |
| 1516 | Sir Thomas More, Utopia |
| 1517 | Luther's 95 theses |
| 1518-22 | Spanish conquest of Mexico |
| 1519 | Aztecs believe Cortes to be descendant of god Quetzalcoatl |
| 1519-22 | Magellan circumnavigates globe |
| 1525 | Wm. Tyndale first translates New Testament into English |
| 1530s | Spanish conquest of Southwestern U. S. and Latin America |
| 1533 | Pizarro executes Inca of Peru |
| 1535 | Henry VIII becomes head of Church of England, breaks with R. C. church |
| 1536 | Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca (1542) |
| 1539 | Henry VIII issues the Great Bible, trans. by Miles Coverdale |
| 1536 | William Tyndale burned at stake in England |
| 1541 | Calvin introduces Reformation to Geneva |
| 1543 | Copernicus, On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies |
| 1543 | Millenial economic and sexual commune at Munster |
| 1544 | Peruvian silver mine found at Potosi |
| 1553 | Queen Mary I ascends throne of England, restores Roman Catholic church |
| 1554 | Oxford and Trinity (Dublin) colleges founded |
| 1555 | Aztec dictionary published |
| 1558 | Queen Elizabeth I ascends throne, restores Church of England |
| 1559 | First index of forbidden books |
| 1560 | Geneva Bible with margin commentaries printed by Calvinists |
| 1562 | Religious wars against Huguenots in France |
| 1563 | Spanish Inquisition introduced to New World |
| 1563 | Term "Puritan" appears in England |
| 1563 | St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 2000 French Protestants |
| 1564 | British explore Virginia |
| 1565 | St. Augustine (Florida), first U. S. city, founded by Spanish |
| c1565 | Narrative of Coronado Expedition(1596) |
| 1568 | Mexican silver at Zaatecar mined by Spanish |
| 1568 | Bishop's Bible issued to counteract popular Geneva Bible |
| 1576 | The Theatre, first playhouse built in London |
| 1577-80 | Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates globe |
| 1582 | Pope Gregory reforms calendar |
| 1588 | Defeat of Spanish Armada by England |
| 1588 | Marlowe, Dr.Faustus |
| 1588 | Shorthand manual published in England |
| 1584 | Sir Walter Raleigh founds Roanoke colony, Virginia |
| 1587 | The Rose, London theatre (archaeological excavation 1980s) |
| 1590 | First water closet in England |
| 1590s | Era of traditional literary forms (sonnet, epic, tragedy, ode) |
| 1580s | English Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser |
| 1599 | Globe Theatre built (Shakespeare's plays performed there) |
| 1600 | Telescope invented in Holland |
| c1600 | Spanish conquest of Pueblos |
| 1603 | James I ascends throne |
| 1603 | Raleigh imprisoned for treason |
| 1604 | Oxford and Cambridge granted parliamentary privilege (revoked 1948) |
| 1605 | Cervantes, Don Quixote |
| 1607 | John Smith founds Jamestown colony, Virginia |
| 1608 | Separatists (Pilgrims) leave England for Holland |
| 1609 | Henry Hudson explores river named for him |
| 1609 | Galileo Galilei observes planets through telescope |
| 1610 | Founding of Santa Fe (New Mexico), second oldest U.S. city |
| 1611 | King James (Authorized) Version of Bible |
| 1611 | Shakespeare, The Tempest |
| 1612 | Tobacco cultivation starts in North America |
| 1612 | Manhattan trading post (Dutch) |
| 1614 | Pocahantas, Indian princess, marries John Rolfe |
| 1614 | Napier discovers logarithms |
| 1620 | Pilgrims Mayflower settle Plymouth, MA, Mayfl. Compact |
| 1619 | First Negro slaves in North America |
| 1623 | Shakespeare, First Folio (posthumous) |
| 1624 | * John Smith, General History of Virginia |
| 1625 | Charles I ascends throne |
| 1626 | First classic trans. in America: George Sandys' Ovid's Metamorphosis |
| c1630 | * Wm. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1630-1650 (1856) |
| 1630 | Puritan dissenters settle Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston) |
| 1630 | * Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity |
| c1630 | * Winthrop, Journal, 1630-49 (pub. 1826) |
| 1635 | Speed limit set for London hackney cabs: 3 mph |
| c1635 | * Thomas Morton, New England Canaan |
| 1635 | Bay Psalm Book, first book printed in U. S. colonies |
| 1636 | Roger Williams founds Rhode Island, est. religious freedom |
| 1637 | Pequot Indian War in Connecticut |
| 1637 | Harvard College founded |
| 1638 | Torture abolished in England |
| 1641 | Closing of theatres in England |
| 1642 | English Civil War begins between Charles I and Puritan party |
| 1644 | John Milton, Areopagitica, on freedom of press |
| 1649 | Execution of Charles; Puritan Commonwealth established under Cromwell |
| 1650 | World population 500 million (est.) |
| 1650 | * Anne Bradstreet's poems first published in London |
| 1660s | New fashion of literary satire, rhymed couplets, oratorios |
| 1660 | Charles II ascends throne in Restoration; theatres re-opened |
| 1660 | Half-way covenant in New England |
| 1661 | John Eliot translates Bible into Algonquin (first Amer. ed.) |
| 1661 | John Evelyn writes first tract on air pollution (London) |
| 1662 | Founding of Royal Society (rise of new science) |
| 1662 | * Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom |
| 1664 | New Amsterdam (Dutch) becomes New York (English) |
| 1666 | Puritans from CT under Robert Treaty settle Newark, N.J. |
| 1667 | John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667-1674) |
| 1669 | John Locke's model constitution for Carolinas |
| 1670 | First minute hands on clocks and watches |
| 1673 | * Samuel Sewall, Diary (to 1729) |
| 1675-76 | King Phillip's War (Wampanoag and Narrgansett in New England) |
| 1675 | * Mary Rowlandson, Captivity Narrative |
| 1678 | John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (1678-1684) |
| 1680 | Pueblo revolt against Spanish rule |
| 1680s | * Edward Taylor's poems (published 1939-1981) |
| 1682 | Philadelphia founded |
| 1681 | William Penn charter for Pennsylvania |
| 1687 | Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica |
| 1690 | John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding |
| 1691 | Massachusetts absorbs Plymouth Colony |
| 1692 | Salem witchcraft trials |
| 1692 | * Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World |
| 1700s | Rise of non-English emigration to North America |
| 1701 | Yale College founded |
| 1702 | * Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana |
| 1702-13 | Queen Anne's War in North America |
| 1704 | Bach's first cantata |
| 1704 | Boston Newsletter weekly, first newspaper in America |
| 1705 | * Robert Beverly, History of Virginia |
| 1709 | First copyright laws in England |
| c1710 | * William Byrd, Secret Diary (pub. 1941) |
| 1711 | Addison and Steele begin Spectator magazine in London |
| 1712 | Last execution for witchcraft in England |
| 1718 | Yale University founded |
| 1719 | Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe |
| 1720s | Rise of printing, newspapers, magazines, novels in England |
| 1726 | Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels |
| 1727 | Quakers demand abolition of slavery |
| 1730s | Plains Indians acquire horses, develop tepee, sign language |
| 1735 | John Peter Zenger, N. Y. publisher, acquitted of libel charges |
| 1730s | Great Awakening in colonies |
| 1733 | * Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth |
| c1739 | * Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative |
| 1740 | Richardson, Pamela |
| 1741 | * Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God |
| 1746 | Princeton founded as College of New Jersey |
| c1750 | Philadelphia emerges as main city of colonies |
| 1751 | Encyclopedie begins in France |
| 1755 | Lisbon earthquake |
| 1755-63 | French & Indian War in North America |
| 1759 | Voltaire, Candide |
| 1759 | Haydn's first symphony |
| 1759-67 | Sterne, Tristam Shandy (pub. 1760-67) |
| 1763 | Pontiac's rebellion in Northwest Territory |
| 1765 | Stamp Act |
| 1765 | Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me death" |
| 1765 | James Watt invents steam engine |
| 1766 | Repeal of Stamp Act |
| 1766 | Rutgers College founded |
| 1767 | Mason-Dixon survey between Pennsylvania and Maryland |
| 1768 | First number of Encyclopedia Britannica (first edition 1771) |
| 1770 | Boston Massacre |
| 1773 | Boston Tea Party |
| 1773 | Phillis Wheatley, Poems |
| c1770 | * John Woolman, Journal (1774) |
| 1771-90 | * Franklin, Autobiography (published 1791, 1868) |
| 1774-83 | * John Adams and Abigail Adams, Letters (published 1875) |
| 1775-83 | American Revolution (War of American Independence) |
| 1776 | * Paine, Common Sense and The Crisis |
| 1776 | * Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence |
| 1776 | Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations |
| 1777 | Congress adopts Articles of Confederation |
| 1782 | * Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer |
| 1783 | Peace of Paris ends American Revolution |
| 1783 | Montgolfier brothers ascend in fire balloon |
| 1784 | * Franklin, Those who Would remove to America |
| 1784 | * Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia |
| 1785 | London Times newspaper begins |
| 1787 | Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia |
| 1787 | * Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Federalist Papers |
| 1787 | * Royall Tyler, The Contrast |
| 1787 | Mozart, Don Giovanni |
| 1789 | Constitution ratified; first president & congress in N. Y. |
| 1789 | French Revolution; storming of Bastille |
| 1790 | Philadelphia becomes U. S. capital |
| 1791 | Boswell, Life of Johnson |
| 1792 | Denmark abolishes slave trade |
| 1793 | * Paine, The Age of Reason |
| 1793 | Roman Catholic church suppressed in France |
| 1796-1815 | Napoleonic wars |
| 1797 | Coleridge, Kubla Khan (published 1816) |
| 1798 | Haitian revolution |
| 1798 | Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads |
| 1799 | Rosetta stone found |
| 1800 | Robert Owen starts New Lanark |
| 1801 | Robert Fulton launches Nautilus, first submarine |
| 1803 | Louisiana Purchase |
| 1804 | Duel of Hamilton and Aaron Burr on Weehawken, N. J. cliffs |
| 1804-06 | Lewis & Clark expedition |
| 1807 | Slavery abolished in British dominions |
| 1807 | Robert Fulton's first steamboat |
| 1809 | U. S. prohibits African slave trade |
| 1809 | Washington Irving, History of New York (Knickerbocker) |
| 1811 | Luddites destroy machines in northern England |
| 1811 | Wm. Henry Harrison destroys Tecumseh settlement |
| 1812 | War of 1812 |
| 1814 | George Stephenson invents steam locomotive |
| 1814 | London Times printed on steam press |
| c1814 | * William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis |
| 1815 | USS Fulton, first steam warship (38 tons) |
| 1815 | Resettlement begins of Native Americans westward on reservations |
| 1816 | Blackwood's magazine begins |
| 1817-21 | Latin American Wars of colonial independence |
| 1818 | 49th parallel becomes U.S.-Canadian border |
| 1819 | Spain cedes Florida to U.S. |
| 1819 | * Irving, Sketch Book |
| 1820 | Missouri Compromise |
| 1821 | Sequoyah invents Cherokee alphabet of 85 characters |
| 1822 | Liberia founded as haven for freed U.S. slaves |
| 1823 | Monroe Doctrine |
| 1823 | * Cooper, The Pioneers, first Leatherstocking novel |
| 1826 | Erie Canal |
| 1828 | * Cooper, Notions of the Americans |
| 1828 | Noah Webster, Dictionary of the American Language |
| 1828 | Working Men's Party founded in New York City |
| 1828 | Weekly newspaper begins in Cherokee language |
| 1829 | Slavery abolished in Mexico |
| 1829 | First U. S. patent for typewriter |
| 1830s | Rise of Philadelphia as publishing center |
| 1830 | Joseph Smith establishes Mormon Church |
| 1830 | Revolutions in Paris |
| 1830 | Lyell, Principles of Geology |
| 1830 | Stendhal, The Red and the Black |
| 1830 | Seba Smith begins Jack Downing letters |
| 1831 | William Lloyd Garrison begins Liberator |
| 1831 | * Edgar Allan Poe, Poems |
| 1832 | New England Anti-Slavery Society founded |
| 1832 | Ralph Waldo Emerson resigns from Unitarian church |
| 1832 | * Nathaniel Hawthorne, My Kinsman, Major Molineux |
| 1833 | General Trades Union established in N.Y. |
| 1833 | New York Sun, first successful penny paper |
| 1833-35 | Charles Darwin, voyage of Beagle |
| 1834 | End of Spanish Inquisition |
| 1834 | Indian Intercourse Act to define Indian Territory in Oklahoma |
| 1834 | Cyrus McCormick invents reaping machine |
| 1834 | Charles Babbage invents analytic engine (computer prototype) |
| 1836 | Samuel Colt invents revolver |
| 1836 | Texas becomes independent from Mexico |
| 1836 | Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus |
| 1836 | * Emerson, Nature |
| c1836 | Transcendental Club |
| 1837 | Queen Victoria ascends throne of England |
| c1837 | Trans-Atlantic steamship service |
| 1837 | Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers |
| 1837 | Economic panic in U. S. |
| c1837 | Steam printing press produces cheap periodicals and literature |
| 1837 | Democratic Review begins |
| 1837 | * Emerson, The American Scholar |
| 1837 | * Hawthorne, Twice Told Tales |
| 1837-8 | Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym |
| 1838 | Underground railroad established |
| 1838 | John James Audubon, The Birds of America (4 vols.) |
| 1838 | * Emerson, Divinity School Address |
| 1839 | * Poe, Tale of the Grotesque and Arabesque |
| 1839 | Daguerre invents photography |
| 1840 | Proudhon on property |
| 1840s | Rise of New York as publishing center |
| 1840s | "Young America"; agitation for International Copyright |
| 1840s | Spread of Utopian social communes in U.S. |
| 1840-60 | * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry |
| 1841 | * Emerson, Essays: First Series |
| 1841 | New York Daily Tribune, ed. Horace Greeley |
| 1841 | P. T. Barnum opens the American Museum in N. Y. |
| 1841 | First university degrees awarded to women in U. S. |
| 1842 | Brook Farm and The Dial magazine |
| 1842 | Eugene Sue, Mysteries of Paris becomes expose bestseller |
| 1843 | Take-off of industrialization in U. S. |
| 1844 | Anti-British war movement in U. S. over Oregon |
| 1844 | Horace Wells uses first anesthetic in dentistry |
| 1844 | Samuel F. B. Morse invents telegraph |
| 1845 | Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England |
| 1845 | Texas annexed by U.S. |
| 1845 | * Frederick Douglass, Narrative |
| 1845 | Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century |
| 1845 | * Poe, The Raven and Other Poems |
| 1846 | First U. S.-Mexican war |
| 1846 | Potato famine in Ireland |
| 1846 | Elias Howe invents sewing machine |
| 1846 | Herman Melville, Typee |
| 1847 | George Boole, Mathematical Analysis of Logic |
| 1847 | Literary World, first U. S. literary weekly, ed. Duyckinck |
| 1848 | * Lowell, A Fable for Critics |
| 1848 | European Revolutions of 1848 |
| 1848 | Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Communist Manifesto |
| 1848 | Spiritualism fad in U. S. |
| 1849 | California gold rush |
| 1849 | * Emerson, Representative Men |
| 1849 | End of British copyright protection for U. S. writers |
| 1849 | * Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience |
| 1850-55 | "American Renaissance" period |
| 1850 | World population 1.1 billion (est.) |
| 1850 | Rise of Boston as a publishing center |
| 1850 | * Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter |
| 1851 | Great Exhibition, London |
| 1851 | * Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables |
| 1851 | * Melville, Moby Dick |
| 1851 | * Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| 1851 | New York Times begins |
| 1852 | Melville, Pierre |
| 1853 | Crystal Palace Exposition, New York |
| 1853-5 | * Melville, Bartleby; Tartarus; Benito Cereno |
| 1854 | * Thoreau, Walden |
| 1855 | * Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (editions thru 1891) |
| 1856 | Flaubert, Madam Bovary |
| 1856 | Melville, Confidence Man |
| 1857 | Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal |
| 1857 | Dred Scott decision |
| 1858 | * Emily Dickinson begins to write poems |
| 1858 | Lincoln-Douglas debates |
| 1859 | John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry |
| 1859 | Suez Canal construction begins |
| 1859 | Darwin, Origin of Species |
| 1860-90 | Bloody period of U. S.-Indian wars |
| 1861-65 | American Civil War |
| 1861 | Pasteur develops germ theory |
| 1861 | * Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills |
| 1862 | R. J. Gatling invents 10-barrel rotating gun |
| 1863 | Emancipation Proclamation |
| 1863 | * Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address |
| 1863 | * Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, Lemorne versus Huell |
| 1864 | Karl Marx, First Intl. Workingmen's Assoc., London & NYC |
| 1864 | George Pullman builds first railroad sleeping car |
| 1865 | Atlantic cable completed |
| 1865 | Gregor Mendel formulates laws of genetic inheritance |
| 1856 | Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland |
| 1865 | MIT founded |
| 1865 | Ratification of 13th amendment abolishing slavery |
| 1866 | Alfred Nobel invents dynamite |
| 1867 | Marx, Das Capital |
| 1867 | Alaska purchased by U. S. from Russia for $7.2 million |
| 1867 | John William DeForest, Miss Ravenal's Conversion |
| 1868 | Ratification of 14th amendment |
| 1869 | Suez Canal opens |
| 1869 | Transcontinental U. S. railroad completed |
| 1869 | Mendeleev discovers periodic table of elements |
| 1869 | Height of U. S.-Indian warfare (1869-75) |
| 1869 | Rutgers and Princeton play first intercollegiate football game |
| 1870 | First edition of Dictionary of National Biography (England) |
| 1870 | Franco-Prussian War |
| 1870s | Invention of barbed wire |
| 1880s | * Melville writes Billy Budd (pub. 1924) |
| 1891-2 | Deaths of Melville, Whitman, Lowell |