Francis Drake sails into a crowded Cadiz harbour and destroys some thirty Spanish ships

The more nimble English fleet destroys the galleons of the Spanish Armada, introducing a new kind of naval warfare

The tactics used against the Armada reveal that the sailing ships themselves have become fighting machines, as men-of-war

An English clergyman, William Lee, develops the world's first industrial machinery, to knit stockings

English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene

After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III

A flush toilet is illustrated in an English pamphlet, The Metamorphosis of Ajax by John Harrington

A manuscript, the Guildford Book of Court, uses the word 'creckett' for a game played in a Guildford school

The Globe, where many of Shakespeare's plays are first performed, is built on Bankside in London

William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth, concludes that the earth is a magnet and coins the term 'magnetic pole'

Britain's East India Company is established when Elizabeth I grants a charter to a 'Company of Merchants trading into the East Indies'

Electricity is given its name (in the Latin phrase vis electrica) by the English physician, William Gilbert

Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age

James VI of Scotland inherits peacefully the crown of his English cousin Elizabeth, and becomes James I of England

The accession of James I and VI to the throne of England brings the union of the crowns of England and Scotland

The British king James I launches a blistering attack on the smoking of tobacco, which he considers a loathsome custom

James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years

Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I

The Gunpowder Plot, attempting murder and treason, severely damages the Catholic cause in Britain

The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone

The earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel sail from Ireland with their families, in the event known as the Flight of the Earls

A shipload of Puritans, among them some of the future Pilgrim Fathers, sail from Boston in Lincolnshire to seek religious freedom in Holland

Shakespeare's sonnets, written ten years previously, are published

Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed

The Globe catches fire during a performance of Shakespeare's last play, Henry VIII