Welcome to the companion timeline to GUMSHOES, FANGS, ROCKETS & SPIES, the nonfiction book about the evolution of genres. Gold Award winner for History, 2021 Royal Palm Literary Awards.;xNLx;;xNLx;To toggle between 2D and 3D views, click on the round icon in the lower left of your screen. Maneuver about with cursor or the slider at the bottom.;xNLx;;xNLx;Feel free to link to and share this timeline! ;xNLx;;xNLx;Visit me at [KENPELHAM.COM](http://www.KENPELHAM.COM);xNLx;;xNLx;;xNLx;;xNLx;;xNLx;;xNLx;* * *;xNLx;;xNLx;All text, copyright 2018 by Ken Pelham. Unauthorized copying or use of the material herein without the author's consent is prohibited. ;xNLx;All images used are either public domain images or used with the permission of the rights holder.
Ordoacer enters and conquers the City of Rome. Generally considered to be the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Fairy tales, tall tales, and folklore, of all cultures, often referred by the German word Märchen, date back millennia.
With the collapse of Rome, legends, myths, and folk tales of the lands of Europe continued to be passed along orally, and with time many found a home in writing. But the great majority of written literature was religious and theological in nature, as the few literate persons around tended to be found in churches and monasteries.
Woodblock printing is known to have existed in China as long ago as 220 AD. The first known use of the technique for printing literature dates to the Tang Dynasty, in the 7th century AD... a good eight centuries before the Gutenberg press.
Arabian tales of wonder and imagination, composed beginning sometime in the 8th century.
The beginning of a long era of domination.
Huŏ yào, or "fire medicine," gunpowder was invented by alchemists ironically looking for an elixir to prolong life. By the year 1000, it was used in military weapons.
Containing teachings of the Buddha, the Chinese edition of Diamond Sutra is, according to the British Library, "the earliest complete survival of a printed, dated book." This book was printed nearly 600 years before the invention of the Gutenberg press, using the wood block technique developed by the Chinese in the 7th century.
The Sung Dynasty ushers in an era of progressive arts, philosophy, and literature.
The epic poem that is the oldest known in the English language. Heroic deeds and monsters galore!
The original classic of ancient Japan.
Written probably between 1040 and 1115, "The Song of Roland" remains the oldest surviving major work of French literature.
William the Conqueror leads the Normans to victory over the English, and the introduction of French vocabulary shifts Old English to Middle English.
The secret and technology of gunpowder spreads in the 13th century from China to Japan and to the Middle East, and then to Europe.
The first of the Medieval Inquisitions into heresy begins with the Episcopal Inquisition, which would last until the 1230s.
An epic poem in Middle High German, relating the deeds of the dragon-slayer Siegfried.
Churchmen and barons convene to curb the abuses of power of King John, and create the document that will become one of the foundations of democratic government.
The first stirrings of the Renaissance began in the early 14th century in Italy, most notably in Florence. Thinkers embraced the knowledge of Classical Greece, and set upon a path of humanism, science, and art. The movement soon spread around the Continent.
The preeminent work of Italian Renaissance literature, an epic poem in three parts, INFERNO, PURGATORIO, AND PARADISO.
The Aztecs found their capital, Tenochtitlan, on the site of what would later become Mexico City.
Bubonic plague sweeps out of China and burns through India and Europe.
Seven women and three men isolate themselves from plague and spin one hundred stories to pass the time.
Allegorical prose poem attributed to William Langland.
An alliterative verse poem of chivalry, SIR GAWAIN dates to the late 14th-century.
The high point of Middle English literature.
The game-changer of Western literature. Books were no longer of the single or two variety, each copied by hand. A book, once written, could be copied without limit.
The Malatestiana Library, the first true public lending library in Europe, and possibly in the entire world, is founded, and open to any member of the public. A key piece to the Renaissance. Although libraries in some form have existed almost as long as writing (in ancient Sumeria, for example, libraries housed the clay tablet records of business), until the Malatestiana, libraries were typically privately owned or university libraries, not accessible to the general public.
The ancient tales of King Arthur collected and retold by Malory.
The treatise on witchcraft which became the handbook for persecuting suspected witches for the next couple of centuries.
Although 14,000 years too late to have "discovered" the New World, Columbus opened it to European conquest, reshaping the world.
Leonardo issues his study of flight, including proposed designs for flying machines.
More imagines an island nation in which he can experiment with society and politics, much like Plato did with Atlantis. More than the first book of "utopian" genre, this is actually the first of true world-building (if we discount Plato's Atlantean scribblings). More first published UTOPIA in Latin, and later in English in 1551.
Amazingly, he managed to not fall off the flat earth.
French philosopher and writer Rabelais pens the most famous of his works, a satire about the giant Gargantua and his son.
Francisco Pizarro's conquistadors overwhelm the unprepared Incas in Peru.
Copernicus overturns the Ptolemaic view of the cosmos.
Elizabeth 1, last of England's House of Tudor, begins an influential reign lasting to her death March 24, 1603.
FAUSTUS sets a new standard for English language drama.
An English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins crushes the planned invasion by Spain.
Knights Errant confront dragons and wizards and fairies and witches in an epic poem of allegory on the great virtues.
KIng Richard III schemes and murders his way to power.
The timeless tragedy of star-crossed lovers...
Fairy magic!
Against all odds in the battlefields of France...
A complex tale of murder, revenge, and paralyzing self-doubt.
An aging gentleman of Spain decides that the time has come for a return to the heroics and chivalry of old.
Ambition and murder amid the trappings of horror and the supernatural.
The first French novel, a pastoral love story. Hugely popular across Europe in its day, it ran 5,399 pages long.
Galileo publishes his first astronomical findings.
Shipwreck, magic, mad man, and monster...
We'd love to hear from you. Please send questions or feedback to the below email addresses.
Before contacting us, you may wish to visit our FAQs page which has lots of useful info on Tiki-Toki.
We can be contacted by email at: hello@tiki-toki.com.
You can also follow us on twitter at twitter.com/tiki_toki.
If you are having any problems with Tiki-Toki, please contact us as at: help@tiki-toki.com
Close