Category: Timeline Stories

All timeline stories.

c. 150 BCE: The invention of paper

According to acheological evidence, paper is invented in China in the 2nd century BCE. The first primitive paper is made from hemp.   In 105 CE, Cai Lun, the director…

1529: The Diet of Speyer

George Cattermole, The Diet of Spires, 19 April, 1529. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom.   The Diet of Speyer in 1529 introduces pre-publication censorship everywhere in the Holy…

1586: The Star Chamber Decree

Engraving of the Star Chamber, published in “Old and new London” in 1873, taken from a drawing made in 1836   The Star Chamber Decree is issued in 1586, during…

1557: The Stationers’ Company

Logo of the Stationers’ Company   The Stationers’ Company receives royal charter by Mary I in 1557. With monopoly on printing and selling books, it the Stationers’ Company has authority…

1517-1531: Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy

  The political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli makes a sweeping defense of republican liberty and public speech in his Discourses on Livy from around 1517. The book is published posthumously in…

1126-98: Ibn Rushd (Averröes)

Andrea Bonaiuto, Triunfo de Santo Tomás, fourteenth century.   Ibn Rushd, Latinized as Averroes, is one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age. The philosopher, jurist, and physician…

1492: The Alhambra Decree

Spanish Jews pleading with Isabel, Fernando and grand inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada in a painting by Solomon A. Hart.   The Alhambra Decree issued by Fernando and Isabel expels all…

1798: The Sedition Act

John Adams (1735-1826)   President John Adams pushes the Sedition Act through in 1798, restricting criticism of the president to silence Thomas Jefferson’s supporters. When Adams loses to Jefferson in…

1775-1783: The American Revolutionary War

John Trumbull, Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 1797   In 1775, a growing tension over political rights and taxation prompts Britain’s American colonies to rebel. Next year, the colonies declare their…