Latin

Indo-European language of the Italic branch

51 dated entries naming Latin, drawn from 50 separate years between 670 BCE and 1928 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Latin language, Latinist in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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7th century BC

670 BCEMettius Fufetius, Latin king of Alba Longasource

3rd century BC

268 BCEThe Romans found a colony at Malventum which they, for superstitious reasons, call Beneventum (since male means bad and bene means good in Latin).source
240 BCEThe first Latin tragedy by Livius Andronicus, Achilles, is first produced.source
235 BCEA work by the Latin epic poet and dramatist Gnaeus Naevius is performed for the first time.source
201 BCEGnaeus Naevius, Latin epic poet and dramatist of the Old Latin period, who invented a new genre of written historical plays called fabulae praetextae, which are based on Roman historical or legendary figures and events (born c. 264 BC).source

2nd century BC

184 BCETitus Macchius Plautus, Roman comic dramatist, whose works, loosely adapted from Greek plays, established a truly Roman drama in the Latin language (born c. 254 BC)source
169 BCEQuintus Ennius, Roman epic poet, dramatist, and satirist, the most influential of the early Latin poets – and often called the founder of Roman literature or the father of Roman poetry. His epic Annales, a poem telling the story of Rome from the wanderings of Aeneas to Ennius' own time, remains the national epic until it is later eclipsed by Virgil's Aeneid.source
159 BCEPublius Terentius Afer (Terence), Roman comic dramatist, the author of six verse comedies that are long regarded as models of pure Latin (born c. 195 BC) (approximate date).source
105 BCEDecimus Laberius, Roman nobleman and Latin writer (died 43 BC)source

1st century BC

94 BCEThe first (failed) attempt to open a Latin rhetorical school.source
82 BCEQuintus Valerius Soranus, Roman politician and Latin poet (executed by order of Sulla)source
14 BCELucius Varius Rufus, Roman Latin poet and writersource
12 BCESextius Propertius, Roman Latin poet and writer (born c. 50–45 BC)source

1st century

4AD 4 – Columella, Roman Latin writer (died AD 70)source
17Gaius Julius Hyginus, Roman Latin writersource
38Marcus Valerius Martialis, Roman Latin poet (approximate date)source

4th century

321Calcidius translates Plato into Latin.source
390Jerome, having finished the Latin translation of the New Testament, begins translating the Old Testament.source

5th century

405Jerome's Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin is completed by his translations of the Tanakh from the Hebrew language.source
459Emperor Leo I signs a peace treaty with the Ostrogoths. King Theodemir sends his son, the future Theodoric the Great, age 5, as a child hostage to Constantinople. He learns at court about Latin, military tactics and religion (until 469).source

6th century

530Venantius Fortunatus, Latin poet and bishop (approximate date) (died 600)source

7th century

609Venantius Fortunatus, Latin poet and bishop (or 600)source
610October 3 – Heraclian revolt: Heraclius arrives with a fleet from Africa at Constantinople. Assisted by an uprising in the capital, he overthrows and personally beheads Emperor Phocas. Heraclius gains the throne with help from his father Heraclius the Elder. His first major act is to change the official language of the Byzantine Empire from Latin to Greek (already the language of the vast majority of the population).source
643King Rothari of the Lombards issues the Edictum Rothari, which is the first codification of Lombard law (written in Latin). The edict guarantees rights only for Lombard subjects.source

8th century

746King Ratchis codifies the Lombard laws, promulgated in Latin, and advised by his council and the Lombard army (approximate date).source

9th century

852March 4 – Trpimir I, duke (knez) of Croatia, and founder of the Trpimirović dynasty, issues a first state document in Bijaći of all Slavonic peoples. In this Latin document Trpimir refers to himself as the "duke of the Croats" (dux Chroatorum), and to his country as the "state of the Croats" (regnum Chroatorum).source
880Pope John VIII issues the bull Industriae Tuae, creating an independent ecclesiastical province in Great Moravia, with archbishop Methodius as its head. Old Church Slavonic is recognized as the fourth liturgical language, besides Latin, Greek and Hebrew.source
899October 26 – King Alfred the Great dies after a 28-year reign in which he has forced invading Danish Vikings to withdraw, consolidated England around Wessex, divided parts of Mercia into shires, compiled the best laws of earlier kings, encouraged learning by bringing famous scholars to Wessex and made his own translations of Latin works. He is succeeded by his eldest son, Edward the Elder as king of Wessex.source

11th century

1027The Book of Healing (Arabic: کتاب الشفاء Kitab Al-Shifaʾ, Latin: Sufficientia), a comprehensive scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by the Persian polymath Avicenna (Abū ʿAlī ibn Sīnā), is published.source
1080King Alfonso VI ("the Brave") of León and Castile establishes Latin liturgy in the Catholic Church, in place of the Hispanic Rite.source

12th century

1126Adelard of Bath, an English philosopher, translates Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī's arithmetic and astronomical works into Latin.source
1143Robert of Ketton makes the first European translation of the Qur'an for Peter the Venerable, Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, into Latin.source
1146Adam of Saint Victor, French Latin poet and composersource

13th century

1229March 6 – University of Paris strike: Students begin to riot, after a dispute over a bill with a tavern proprietor. Queen Blanche of Castile demands retribution, and allows the city guard to punish the student rioters. She puts an economic strain upon the student quarter of Paris (the Latin Quarter), where Latin is commonly heard in the streets.source
1270Witelo translates Alhazen's 200-year-old treatise on optics, Kitab al-Manazir, from Arabic into Latin, bringing the work to European academic circles for the first time.source
1286March 7 – The Catholicon, a religious Latin dictionary, is completed by John of Genoa.source

15th century

1463Corpus Hermeticum is translated into Latin, by Marsilio Ficino.source
1471Marsilio Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, De potestate et sapientia Dei, is published.source
1473February 12 – The first complete inside edition of Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (Latin translation) is published in Milan.source

16th century

1516c. December – Thomas More's most famous work, Utopia, completed this year, is published in Leuven (in Latin).source
1582March – The New Testament of the Douai Bible, the translation into English by Father Gregory Martin from Latin of the New Testament, for use in the Roman Catholic Church, is published. Martin had started his work on October 16, 1578.source
1583October 18 – In South America, the Third Council of Lima comes to an end after two months after being convened to provide a consistent doctrine for the Roman Catholic Church in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Among other things, the Council approves the treatment of the native population "not like slaves but as free men" as part of evangelism and conversion to Christianity, as well as the use of the Quechua language and the Aymara language to spread the gospel. The use of Spanish is ordered for church services, and Latin is forbidden.source
1592November 9 – The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, an updated edition of the Latin language translation of the Bible, is promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church.source

17th century

1666May 13 – French theologian Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy is imprisoned in the Bastille after his conviction for heresy in connection with the Jansenist movement. Sacy uses his two and one-half years of incarceration (which lasts until November 14, 1668), to create the Bible du Port-Royal, a first French language rendition of the Bible, finishing a translation of the Old Testament from the Vulgate, written in Latin, that had been started by his brother Antoine, and then beginning work on the New Testament.source
1674July 17 – Two skeletons of children are discovered by workmen repairing a staircase at the White Tower (Tower of London), and believed at this time to be the remains of the Princes in the Tower. The urns containing the bones are interred in 1678 in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription in Latin that states "Here lie interred the remains of Edward V, King of England, and Richard, Duke of York, whose long desired and much sought after bones, after over a hundred and ninety years, were found interred deep beneath the rubble of the stairs that led up to the Chapel of the White Tower, on the 17 of July in the Year of Our Lord 1674."source
1679Atlantica (Atland eller Manheim in Swedish) by Olaus Rudbeck, where he purported to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.source

18th century

1704Chinese Rites controversy: Rome decrees that Roman ceremonial practice in Latin (not in Chinese) is to be the law for Chinese missions.source
1733March 25 – English replaces Latin and Law French as the official language of English and Scottish courts following the enforcement of the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730.source
173325 March – English replaces Latin and Law French as the official language of English and Scottish courts on coming into effect of the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730.source
1786February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.source

20th century

1928November 1 – Turkey passes a law switching the country from the Arabic to the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.source