Christian History Home > Issue 34 > Martin Luther's Early Years: Christian History Timeline
Martin Luther's Early Years: Christian History Timeline
Ken Schurb is assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Concordia College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. | posted 4/01/1992 12:00AM
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1543: Writes On the Jews and Their Lies
1544: Writes against Schwenckfeld’s interpretation of the Lord’s Supper
1545: Writes Against the Papacy at Rome, an Institution of the Devil
1546: Dies in Eisleben, February 18
1552: Katherine von Bora dies , February 18
Other Reformers
1469: (probably) Erasmus born
1484: Ulrich Zwingli born
1491: Henry VIII born
1496: Menno Simons born
1497: Melanchthon born
1498: Savonarola burned at the stake in Florence
1505: John Knox born
1509: John Calvin born; Henry VIII of England begins reign and marries Catherine of Aragon
1516: Erasmus publishes Greek New Testament
1518: Melanchthon becomes professor of Greek at Wittenburg
1519: Zwingli begins New Testament sermons; Swiss reformation is born
1521: Religious unrest in Wittenberg: private masses abolished, Karlstadt serves Communion in both elements, religious statues destroyed; Melanchthon writes Loci Communes; Pope titles Henry VIII “Defender of the Faith” for attacking Luther’s views of the sacraments; “Zwickau prophets,” early Anabaptists, arrive in Wittenberg
1522: Zwingli’s first Reformation debates; Ignatius Loyola begins work on Spiritual Excercises
1523: First two Reformation martyrs burned at the stake in Belgium
1524: Erasmus’s On Freedom of the Will
1525: Anabaptist movement begins in Zurich, spreads to Germany
1526: Reformation spreads to Sweden and Denmark
1527: First Protestant university (Marburg) founded
1528: Bern, Switzerland, becomes Protestant
1529: Name Protestant first used
1531: Zwingli killed in battle
1534: Henry VIII becomes supreme head of Church of England
1535: Anabaptist uprising at Münster put down, and Anabaptists executed
1536: First edition of Calvin’s Institutes; William Tyndale, Bible translator, burned at stake; Denmark and Norway become Lutheran; Erasmus dies
1538: Calvin expelled from Geneva
1540: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) formed
1540: Calvin returns to Geneva from exile
World Events
1452: Leonardo da Vinci born
1453: Turks capture Contantinople
1455: Gutenberg completes printing the Bible using movable type
1469: Lorenzo de’ Medici rules Florence;
Ferdinand and Isabella marry
1470: Portuguese explorers discover Gold Coast of Africa
1471: Thomas à Kempis, author of The Imitation of Christ, dies
1473: Copernicus born
1478: Spanish Inguisition set up
1485: Treaty of Leipzig divides Saxony
1492: Spanish forces conquer city of Granada, expelling Islamic Moors from Iberian peninsula; Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas
1493: The pope divides the New World between Spain and Portugal
1495: Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”
1497: John Cabot reaches coast of Newfoundland; Vasco de Gama discovers west coast of India
1498: Albrecht Durer paints Apocalypse
1499: Swiss gain independence
1500: Future Charles V born
1502: Frederick, elector of Saxony, founds Wittenberg University
1506: Pope Julius orders work on St. Peter’s in Rome; Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”
1508: Michelangelo begins painting Sistine Chapel ceiling
1509: Erasmus writes In Praise of Folly
1510: First shipload of African slaves arrives in Hispaniola (Haiti)
1513: Leo X (Giovanni Medici) pope; Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean
1514: Albert of Brandenburg becomes elector and archbishop of Mainz
1516: Thomas More publishes Utopia; Concordat of Bologna assures French Catholic autonomy
1517: Tetzel hired by Albert of Mainz to sell indulgences
1519: Charles I of Spain is elected Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; Cortes enters Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan
1520: Suleiman I becomes sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Turks)
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