The Early modern English Period (1,500-1,700)

Exploration/Colonization

The British East India Company was the english company formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, the main activity of the company was the expansion of British influence.

Milestones influenced the people's live

The Protestan Reformation Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era.

Henry VIII

Henry is best known for his six marriages, and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII on the question of such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated.

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two-and-a-half years after Elizabeth's birth. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate.

Her period is famous for the flourishing of English drama, by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era.

William Caxton : the first English printer, he was a translator and exerted an important influence on English literature.

The Renaissance revived the classic culture, this allowed the transition from middle to modern English.

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were of British origin

The great vowel shift

was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed, some consonant sounds changed particularly those that became silent;

English spelling began to become standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often considerably deviate from how they represent pronunciations.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was the most important literary figure of the English language in the English Renaissance, he wrote many poems and sonnets.

Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabeth age of British theatre.