1600

John Dee (1527 – 1609)

John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy  As an antiquarian, he had one of the largest libraries in England at the time. As a political advisor, he advocated the foundation of English colonies in the New World to form a “British Empire“, a term he is credited with coining. Dee eventually left Elizabeth’s service and went on a quest for additional knowledge in the deeper realms of the occult and supernatural. He aligned himself with several individuals who may have been charlatans, travelled through […]

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1609 Shakespeare’s Sonnets

all sonnets on archive.org  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote sonnets on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609.  Shakespeare’s sonnets are considered a continuation of the sonnet tradition that swept through the Renaissance from Petrarch in 14th-century Italy and was finally introduced in 16th-century England by Thomas Wyatt and was given its rhyming metre and division into quatrains by Henry Howard. With few exceptions, Shakespeare’s sonnets observe the stylistic form of the English sonnet—the rhyme scheme, the 14 lines, and the metre. But, Shakespeare’s sonnets introduce significant […]

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1600 Shakespeare’s Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare’s longest play. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet is considered among the “most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language”, with a story capable of “seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others”. It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time.

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1600 Euridice

The year 16oo is a traditional milestone in the history of Western music. As will be shown later, the quarrels over the respective merits of ancient and modern music were then at their height. It will also be pointed out that “modern music” then, and for the next two hundred years, referred to music of the Christian era as distinct from music of the ancient Greeks and Romans.6 But in the nineteenth century, with the periodization of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, the latter term comes to mean music since r6oo, the year which saw “the birth of modern opera.” At […]

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Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603)

Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Sometimes referred to as the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was “video et taceo” (“I see and keep silent”). In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After the pope declared her illegitimate in 1570 and released her subjects from obedience to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers’ secret service, run by Francis Walsingham. […]

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1600 The East India Company founded

The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, and kept trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies.  At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world, competing with the Dutch East India Company, and had its own private army of around 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the army of Britain.

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Grace O’Malley, the 16th Century Pirate Queen of Ireland

Grace O’Malley was Queen of Umaill, chieftain of the O Maille clan, rebel, seafarer, and fearless leader, who challenged the turbulent politics of 16 th century England and Ireland. While Irish legends have immortalised Grace as a courageous woman who overcame boundaries of gender imbalance and bias to fight for the independence of Ireland and protect it against the English crown, to the English, she was considered a brutal and thieving pirate, who controlled the coastlines through intimidation and plunder. Grace O’Malley was born in Ireland in around 1530, as a daughter of the wealthy nobleman and sea trader Owen […]

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1600 Shakespeare writes his play Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare’s longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature, with a story capable of “seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others”. It was one of Shakespeare’s most popular works during his lifetime and still ranks among […]

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1605 Don Quixote published

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha or just Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labeled as the first modern novel and is considered one of the greatest works ever written. Don Quixote also holds the distinction of being one of the most-translated books in the world. The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) from La Mancha named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides […]

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