Events Useful for Understanding the Neoclassic Period

From the Reformation to the French Revolution
Based on Christy's Ultimate Timeline Project and
Introduction to Western Humanities -- Baroque & Enlightenment

1517 The German monk Martin Luther publishes the "95 Theses" questioning the validity of certain practices then going-on with the apparent approval of high Church authorities.  This is the conventional date for the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation, which shatters forever (or at least up to today) the unity of "Western Christendom" that had persisted since the days of the "Fathers of the Church" (e.g., Saint Augustine, who died in 432, as the Roman Empire was in its final stages of decay).

1543 The Polish monk Nicholas Copernicus publishes his book On the Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies. This is the conventional date for the outbreak of the Copernican Revolution, which eventually replaced the traditional geocentric (earth-centered) picture of the cosmos with the heliocentric (sun-centered) picture that is the direct ancestor of modern astronomy's picture of our solar system.

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada, a huge fleet of warships sent by the Catholic King Philip of Spain to dethrone Queen Elizabeth of England, and return England to the True Faith. 

1600 Kepler, Johannes becomes the assistant of Tycho Brahe, the imperial mathematician and court astronomer of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor.

1601 Kepler (age 30) assumed his position as imperial mathematician and court astronomer to Rudolf II, Holy Roman emperor. Essex rebellion against Elizabeth I fails.

1602

1603 (1597-1603 Hugh O'Neill led the Irish chieftains in an unsuccessful attack against the English.) James I (King James VI of Scotland) inherits the throne of England. Iyeyasu, a warrior and the chief deputy of the previous Japanese Emperor, names himself shogun.

1604 James I of England restores Recussancy Acts, with more persecution and the expulsion of priests. Pope Clement VIII requests that English Catholics refrain from rebellion. A peace treaty with Catholic Spain is signed.

1605 The Gunpowder plot in England is uncovered.

1606 King James I of England charters the London and Plymouth companies. Rembrandt, a Dutch baroque artist, is born.

1607 Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, is founded. Havana is officially named the capital of Cuba.

1608 Samuel de Champlain founds the village of Quebec.

1609 Galileo uses the newly invented telescope and discovers Jupiter's moons. First regularly published newspaper appears in Germany.

1610 A Dutch East India Company ship brings lacquer furniture to Holland, thus introducing a demand for it.

1611 Galileo goes to Rome to show the Jesuits his discoveries. The King James Version of the Bible, which had been commissioned by the British King in 1604, is completed.

1612 Matthias becomes Holy Roman Emperor. Kepler becomes the mathematician to the states of upper Austria.

1613 Micheal Romanov, the first Russian tsar of the Romanov dynasty was elected. (The Romanov dynasty ruled for more than 300 years.) Sir Thomas Dale, the governor of Virginia, hires mercenaries to try and drive the French out of Acadia.

1614 Pocahontas marries John Rolfe. Japanese shogun Iyeyasu orders that all Christian priests leave Japan, and that the Japanese give up Christianity.

1615

1616 William Shakespeare dies.

1617 Ferdinand II becomes King of Bohemia.

1618

1619 First representative assembly in America held in Jamestown. Also, first African slaves brought to Jamestown. Ferdinand of Bohemia is rejected by the Bohemian nobles and replaced with Fredrick V. Ferdinand II becomes Holy Roman Emperor, and together with Bavaria and the Holy League goes to war with Bohemia. Start of the Thirty Years War. By this time the Dutch had set up a whaling industry on Amsterdam Island.

1620 Fredrick V of Bohemia is defeated and sent into exile. Fredinand II wages war against the Hungarian Protestants. The Mayflower, a small merchant vessel, sails from England to New England with 102 dissenters seeking religious liberty to found the first permanent colony settled by families. Before landing, some sign the Mayflower Compact and lay the foundation for democracy in America.

1621 Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire becomes King of Hungary.

1622 Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) is born.

1623

1624 London Company (a company colonizing America) is dissolved because of trouble in Jamestown.

1625 Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire is victorious in wars against the Protestants in Germany. Charles I becomes king of Britian.

1626

1627 France introduced registered mail. Ferdinand II (of the Holy Roman Empire) outlaws all religions but Roman Catholicism in Bohemia.

1628 Charles I of England signs the Petition of Right promising not to collect forced loans or levy taxes without 'Parliaments consent. (However, he ignores most of the Petition of Right.)

1629 Edict of Restitution allows the Roman Catholic church to recover property seized by Protestants.

1630 Kepler dies.

1631

1632 Locke, John (1632-1704), English philosopher, who founded the school of empiricism is born. Galileo published his book in defiance of Rome, which had asked him not to. He is put under house arrest. Baruch Spinoza is born in to a Jewish family in Amsterdam, on November 24.

1633 Trial of Galileo for heresy before the Inquisition in Rome, for having published a book defending the Copernican hypothesis of the structure of the cosmos.

1634 Ferdinand II (of the Holy Roman Empire) wins the Battle of Nordlingen.

1635

1636 Saint Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit missionary goes to Canada as missionary to the Huron people.

1637 René Decartes publishes drawings of specimens he observed under a microscope. The Japanese government has several thousand Japanese Christians massacred, and all foreign traders except the Dutch are forced out of Japan.

1638

1639

1640 Charles I of England calls the Parliament again after years of not having it. So begins the "Long Parliament" Kirchner, a German Jesuit, builds a magic lantern.

1641 Civil War brings the collapse of the government in Kongo.

1642 English Civil war begins. Montreal founded. Galileo dies.

1643 Evangelista Torricelli accidentally invents the mercury barometer.

1644 End of the Ming Dynasty in China.

1645 Oliver Cromwell reorganises Parliaments armies and (eventually) captures Charles I. Alexis I, second Russian czar of the house of Romanov, succeeds his father Michael.

1646

1647

1648 Thirty Years war ended.

1649 Charles I is executed. England is proclaimed a republic. Oliver Cromwell tries to force the Irish of their land.

1650 French philosopher, scientist and mathematics, René Descartes dies. By around this time the kingdom of Angola is finally conquered by the Portuguese.

1651

1652

1653 Cromwell dissolves parliament and takes the title of "Lord Protector" to rule as a dictator

1654 Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat develop the theory of probability. English chemist Robert Boyle helps found the Philosophical College (which later became the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge).

1655 Christian Huggens discovers the rings of Saturn.

1656 Baruch Spinoza is ex-communicated by the rabbis and banished from Amsterdam. For the next five years he lives on the outskirts of the city working grinding optical lenses.

1657

1658 Cromwell dies.

1659

1660 The Monarchy is restored in England Charles II agrees to respect the Magna Carta and Petition of Rights

1661

1662

1663

1664 Moliere's troupe performs Tartuffe.

1665 Robert Hooke identifies cells.

1666 Approval of the Canal du Midi is given to improve transportation and provide ships with a route to and from the Mediterranean.

1667 "Little Russia," an area around Kiev, is conceded by the Polish government to the Russian government. Jonathan Swift is born.

1668 Francesco Redi attempts to prove that rotting meat cannot spontaneously turn into flies.

1669

1670

1671

1672

1673 In England the Test Act is passed, allowing only members of the Anglican Church to hold public office. Moliere dies at age 51. Leeuwenhoeck publishes his first article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

1674

1675 King Philip's War

1676 Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Roemer observes that light moves at a finite speed by studying Jupiter's moons.

1677 On February 21st Baruch Spinoza dies.

1678

1679 England passes the Habeas Corpus act guaranteeing people protection from arbitrary arrest.

1680

1681 The Canal du Midi is finished after eight years of work.

1682 Ivan V and Peter of Russia are co-rulers, with Peter's sister Sophia as the regent.

1683

1684

1685 James II inherits the throne of England, and passes laws to grant rights to Catholics and dissolves many anti-Irish laws. Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Germany.

1686

1687 Sir Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, formulating the laws of motion for material bodies (both on earth and in the heavens), triumphantly confirming Johannes Kepler's version of the Copernican hypothesis of the structure of the universe.

1688 England's "Glorious Revolution." James II flees to Ireland. William and Mary become joint rulers of England.

1689 The Bill of Rights is passed in England. James II leads and fails a rebellion in Ireland. Sophia is forced off the Russian throne. Peter's mother rules as regent instead. King William's War between the British and the French in North America begins.

1690 In August a fleet of thirty-four ships leave Boston city to attack Quebec.

1691

1692 Salem witch trials result in the execution of scores of citizens for traffic with the Devil.

1693

1694 Ivan V and Peter of Russia become the real rulers of Russia after their mother's death. Voltaire is born.

1695

1696 Ivan V of Russia dies. Augustus II is elected leader of Poland.

1697 King William's War ends.

1698

1699

1700

1701 English Parliament passes the Act of Settlement stating that only an Anglican can inherit the throne.

1702 Queen Anne's War between the British and the French in North America begins. England's first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant is founded.

1703

1704

1705

1706

1707 The Act of Union joins Scotland and England into the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

1708

1709 Peter the Great of Russia defeats the Swedes at Poltava.

1710 Sheikh Sabah bin Jaber leads his clan into the area now called Kuwait and within the next twenty years establishes an unofficial rule.

1711 British forces, together with the American colonies, attempt to attack Quebec, but are discouraged when a storm in the St. Lawrence sinks nine of their ships.

1712

1713 John Needham, an English biologist who would "prove" abiogenesis works is born. Queen Anne's War ends.

1714 George, the German Elector of Hanover becomes King George I, of Britain.

1715 Jacobite nobles lead uprisings in Scotland to try to put James Stuart (son of James II) on the throne. Five year old Louis XV of France succeeds his great grandfather, with the Duke of Orleans as regent.

1716

1717

1718 Blackbeard the pirate dies. In November the only son of Peter the Great of Russia dies.

1719

1720 Peter the Great of Russia signs treaty permitting trade with the Chinese. Japanese shogun Yoshimune repeals the laws against European books and study.

1721

1722 Peter the Great of Russia issues an edict saying that the ruler of Russia shall choose his own successor.

1723

1724

1725 Catherine I of Russia takes the throne at her husbands death. Louis XV of France marries Marie Leszczynska, daughter of the King of Poland.

1726 Johnathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels.

1727 George II of Great Britain crowned. Catherine I of Russia dies, and the grandson of her husband is put on the throne.

1728

1729 Lazzaro Spallanzani, who would attempt to prove that abiogenesis doesn't work is born.

1730 Peter II of Russia dies of smallpox. Anna, the niece of Peter the Great, becomes Empress of Russia.

1731

1732

1733 John Kay invents flying shuttle loom. After Augustus II dies, his son (Augustus III) is elected ruler of Poland.

1734

1735 French scientist, La Codamine, is sent to Peru to measure one degree on the surface of the Earth.

1736 Russo-Turkey war. Nadir Shah, the last great Persian conqueror drives the Afghans from Iran and becomes king.

1737

1738 La Codamine returns to France.

1739 Russo-Turkish war ends (temporarily). War of Jenkin's Ear commences between Great Britain and Spain. David Hume writes his most important work A Treatise of Human Nature.

1740 Frederick (later Frederick the Great) becomes ruler of Prussaia. War of Austrian Succession commences after the death of Emperor Charles VI. Anna of Russia dies, naming Ivan VI, the grandchild of her sister, as successor. Ivan VI's mother (also named Anna) is the regent for the baby emperor.

1741 Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great takes the Russian throne. Vitus Bering (a Russian) discovers Alaska.

1742 Around this time or maybe a year or so later Maria Theresa, daughter of Emperor Charles VI, agrees to give Frederick the Great of Prussia the land he has captured from her during the past two years, in return for Frederick's recognizing her claim to the Austrian throne.

1743

1744 King George's War between the British and French in North America begins. In January, fifteen-year-old  Sophie Auguste Frederika (later known as Catherine the Great), daughter of a petty Germany prince, leaves her home in Stettin to travel to Russia on invitation of the Empress Elizabeth.

1745 Second Jacobite rebellion tries to put "Bonnie Prince Charles" on the throne of Scotland and England. On August 25 Grand-duke Peter of Russia marries Catherine (previously known as Sophie). Jonathan Swift dies.

1746

1747

1748 War of the Austrian Succession is ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. King George's War ends.

1749

1750 Johann Sebastian Bach dies.

1751 Second Carnatic War, an unofficial war between the British East India Company and the French Compagnie des Indes

1752

1753

1754 Grand-Duchess Catherine of Russia gives birth to a son.

1755 French and Indian war begins, with the British and Americans fighting the French, Canadians and Natives. Over the next six years 11,000 Arcadians are deported from Canada. Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams arrives in Russia and negotiates an agreement between England and Russia, stating that Russia would keep 50,000 men at the Livonian frontier ready to march into Prussia, in return for England's paying £100,000 a year, and more if the soldiers are ever used.

1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria. The governor of Pennsylvania offers a bounty of 130 Spanish dollars for "the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the age of twelve years produced as evidence of their being killed." In January the convention of Westminster is signed between Prussia and Hanover, that neither would allow the entry of a foreign army onto German soil. In May the treaty of Versailles was signed between Austria and France. On August 27, Frederick the Great leads the armies of Prussia into Saxony, thus beginning the Seven Years War.

1757 The British East India Company gained control of Bengal after Robert Clive wins the Battle of Plassey. Russia signs onto the treaty of Versailles, which Austria and France had signed the year before and in August a Russian army attacks East Prussia.

1758 The French fortress of Louisbourg falls to the American and British attackers after a seven week siege.Augustus III, king of Poland, requests from the Russian Empress Elizabeth that his son Charles, be given the Dukedom of Courland. Elizabeth agrees to the request. Voltaire writes Candide.

1759 The Duke of Bridgewater builds a seven-and-a-half mile long canal between his mines and Manchester (thus lowering the cost of his coal and demonstrating to the rest of Britian of the importance of canals).

1760 George III of Great Britain crowned. Francis Nixon, an Irishman, comes up with a way to print chintz (brightly colored cloth) using copperplates.

1761

1762 When Empress Elizabeth dies Peter III of Russia becomes ruler. He signs a document restoring to Prussia all the land Russia had taken from it in the past while.... within a few months he is overthrown by wife, Catherine the Great and her supporters. The French government sets up a special section of the Gobelins tapestry factory to produce Chinese and Japanese fakes, since the demand for Chinese and Japanese goods were draining the country of gold.

1763 French and Indian War ends. The Royal Proclamation renames the colony of Canada as the province of Quebec. Catherine the Great of Russia takes the Dukedom of Courland away from Charles (son of Augustus III, king of Poland) and gives it instead to Biran. Augustus III of Poland dies.

1764 Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick of Prussia sign an agreement to bring presure on the Polish diet to elect Stanislas Poniatowski as their new ruler. Stanislas is elected on September 7th. James Hargreaves creates the spinning jenny, a mechnical spinning wheel.

1765

1766 Governor Murray of Quebec is replaced by Guy Carleton.

1767

1768 Russo-Turkish war. Captain James Cook leaves England for a three year exploration of the Pacific.

1769 Richard Arkwright invents a water frame to speed up the process of spinning threads.

1770 Beethoven born. Boston massacre. Poet William Wordsworth is born.

1771

1772 Poland is partitioned for the first time, between Russia, Prussia and Austria. There is a coup d'état in Sweden.

1773 American colonists, disguised as Indians, dump shiploads of tea into the Boston harbour to protest taxation.

1774 Warren Hastings, the first British governor-general of India, takes office. Russo-Turkey war ends. Louis XV of France dies and his grandson, Louis XVI, is crowned.   The Quebec Act is passed, allowing for Catholics to hold office, re-establishing old boundaries of Canada, and allowing French law.

1775 Paul Revere makes his famous ride.

1776 Declaration of Independence; Smith publishes "Wealth of Nations." San Franciso is founded.

1777

1778 Voltaire dies.

1779

1780 Steel pen points begin to replace quill feathers. James Watt invents a paper copier, using a special ink that stays wet for 24 hours, thus allowing someone to press another paper over it and copy the ink.

1781 Immanuel Kant writes his "Critique of Pure Reason." Los Angeles founded.

1782 Governer Morris suggests the idea of decimalizing the American coinage, and Thomas Jefferson takes up the idea based off the Spanish dollar. James Watt (English engineer) invents the double-acting rotary steam engine.

1783 Joseph Michel and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier became the first human beings to fly with their invention of the hot air balloon. The Treaty of Paris formalizes the American independence and defines America's borders.

1784

1785 Edmund Cartwright invents a power loom.

1786 The British government announces its plans to make Australia a penal colony.

1787 Russo-Turkish war. French physicist Jacques Charles discovers "Charles Law" describing the relationship between the volume and temperature of a gas.

1788 United States Constitution ratified. The Qajar dynasty, rulers of Iran, make Tehran their capital. They would rule Iran until the 1920s.

1789 French Revolution - Fall of the Bastille. Mutiny on the British ship the Bounty. George Washington inaugurated as the first President of the United States. Alexander Mackenzie travels with the French-Canadian voyageurs up the river that now bears his name to the Artic. There is a coup d'etat in Sweden. Gustavus III of Sweden passes his Act of Union and Security.

This page is at: http://www.coas.drexel.edu/humanities/faculty/thury/Neoclassic-timeline.html