| 55 BCE
| Roman invasion of Britain under Julius Caesar
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| 43 CE
| Roman invasion and occupation under Emperor Claudius. Beginning of Roman rule of Britain
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| Roman withdrawal from Britain complete
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| Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain begins
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| 450-480
| Earliest Old English inscriptions date from this period
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| St. Augustine arrives in Britain. Beginning of Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons
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| The Venerable Bede publishes The Ecclesiastical History of the English People in Latin
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| Viking raids and settlements begin
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| The Danes occupy Northumbria
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| Alfred becomes king of Wessex. He has Latin works translated into English and begins practice of English prose. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is begun
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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
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| c.1150
| The oldest surviving manuscripts in Middle English date from this period
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| Henry II conquers Ireland
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| King John loses the province of Normandy to France
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| English replaces Latin as the medium of instruction in schools, other than Oxford and Cambridge which retain Latin
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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. Records continue to be kept in Latin. English is used in Parliament for the first time
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| Wyclif publishes his English translation of the Bible
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| c.1388
| Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales
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| c.1400
| The Great Vowel Shift begins
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| William Caxton establishes the first English printing press
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| Caxton publishes Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur
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| Columbus discovers the New World
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| William Tyndale translates the New Testament
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| The first Act of Union unites England and Wales
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| First version of The Book of Common Prayer
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| Shakespeare born
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| Union of the English and Scottish crowns under James the I (VI of Scotland)
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| Robert Cawdrey publishes the first English dictionary, 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 Shakespeare
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| Shakespeare's First Folio is published
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| The Great Fire of London. End of The Great Plague
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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
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| Cook discovers Australia
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| Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence
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| Washington defeats Cornwallis at Yorktown. Britain abandons the American colonies
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| British penal colony established in Australia
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| Act of Union unites Britain and Ireland
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| Noah Webster publishes his dictionary
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| Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick
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| British Broadcasting Corporation founded
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| The Oxford English Dictionary is published
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