- 853 - The Swiss canton of Uri is given the freedom to rule itself
- 1240 - The Swiss canton of Schwyz is given the same freedoms as Uri by Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire
- 1310 - Dante's Divine Comedy
- 1347-1350 - The Bubonic Plague (Black Plague) killed almost 1/3 of the population
- 1381 - English Peasants' Revolt
- 1400 - Beginning of the Italian Renaissance
- 1429-1431 - Appearance of Joan of Arc
- 1450 - Printing Press
- 1452 - Leonardo da Vinci born
- 1469 - Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella
- 1492 - Discovery of the New World - Commissioned by the King of Spain, Columbus set on his famous voyage to find a passage to India, but instead found the Americas, where he claimed it in the name of Spain
- 1503-1505/1507 - Leonardo da Vinci paints Mona Lisa
- 1520 - Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther
- 1564 - William Shakespeare baptized
- 1543 - Copernicus publishes essays stating that the solar system is Heliocentric
- c. 1595 - Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream written
- c. 1599 - Shakespeare's Julius Caesar written
- 1609 - Galileo constructs first telescope
- 1611 - Shakespeare's The Tempest written
- 1630s - Puritans begin settlement in Massachusetts
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- 1233 - King James I of Aragon attacks Valencia with army of mostly men owing feudal service (not regular army); four years after the finish of the sixth crusade
- 1262 - Rudolf I of Habsburg defeats the Swiss with men armed with Danish broad axes. It is theorized that the Swiss created the halberds off this weapon
- 1314 - Battle of Bannockburn
- 1315 - Battle of Morgarten
- 1327 - King Edward III England marches on Scotland with a large army of largely conscripted soldiers; three years after the first real handgun was invented in Florence
- 1337-1453 - Hundred Year's War
- 1346 - Battle of Crecy
- 1386 - Battle of Sempach
- 1415 - Battle of Agincourt
- 1422 - Battle of Arbedo - After this defeat, the Swiss begin shifting their primary weapons from halberds to pikes
- 1475 - The Swiss pikemen have reached the height of their prestige in Europe
- 1600's - National armies begin to grow precipitously
- 1607 - Jacob DeGheyn finishes and publishes "The Renaissance Drill Book" detailing how one should drill using a pike or musket; Jamestown Virginia is settled
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