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Here, you’ll find randomized material from across the textbase’s author profiles and timelines. To jump to the content of your choice, click on its image card.

4 June 1838: The first section of the Great Western Railway,...

Building and people item

4 June 1838

The first section of the Great Western Railway , from London to Bristol, opened.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
90
Ellis, Hamilton. British Railway History: An Outline from the Accession of William IV to the Nationalisation of Railways 1830-1876. George Allen and Unwin, 1954.
73

4 April 1857: The Times declared Madeleine Smith to be...

Building and people item

4 April 1857

The Times declared Madeleine Smith to be possibly guilty of the murder of Emile L'Angelier , her lover.
Liggins, Emma. “The Evil Days of the Female Murderer: Subverted Marriage Plots and the Avoidance of Scandal in the Victorian Sensation Novel”. Journal of Victorian Culture, Vol.
2
, No. 1, 1997, pp. 27-41.
29, 30, 32, 33

1890: The Tate Gallery purchased its first work...

Building and people item

1890

The Tate Gallery purchased its first work of art from a female artist, Anna Lea Merritt 's Love Locked Out.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago, 1989.
120

28 September 1883: A meeting of authors, chaired by Walter Besant,...

Writer or writing item

28 September 1883

A meeting of authors, chaired by Walter Besant , gathered to found the Company of Authors, later the Society of Authors , to improve the earning prospects of writers and lobby for copyright protection.
Parker, Derek. “Onward to 3000”. The Author, Vol.
cx
, No. 4, 1 Dec. 1999–28 Feb. 2000, pp. 166-8.
166-7

Mid 1820s: Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds...

Writer or writing item

Mid 1820s

Harsh economic conditions caused two-thirds of established British publishing firms to crash: authors were ruined, like Sir Walter Scott , by the bankruptcy of Constable and Ballantyne in Edinburgh.
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
215-16
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2026, 22 vols. plus supplements.

10 December 1983: William Golding from Great Britain was awarded...

Writer or writing item

10 December 1983

William Golding from Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
The Nobel Foundation. Nobel E-Museum.

Between 1930 and 1936: Michael Balcon, as Head of Production at...

Building and people item

Between 1930 and 1936

Michael Balcon , as Head of Production at Gaumont British and Gainsborough film company, attempted to define a unique British quality in films, in order to protect the industry from Hollywood invasion.
Robinson, David. The History of World Cinema. Stein and Day, 1981.
198, 199

10 December 1980: Frederick Sanger from Great Britain was awarded...

National or international item

10 December 1980

Frederick Sanger from Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sanger shared one-half of the prize with Walter Gilbert , an American who, like Sanger, researched the base sequences of nucleic acid. The...

5 December 1922: Children's Hour was first broadcast on the...

Building and people item

5 December 1922

Children's Hour was first broadcast on the BBC .
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
41, 364

Susanna Moodie

SM is best remembered for her first-person narrative of pioneer life in Canada, Roughing It in the Bush, 1852, considered a foundational work of Canadian literature. She was a prolific author who wrote...

1856: By this date, the cage crinoline was in widespread...

Building and people item

1856

By this date, the cage crinoline was in widespread use; this dress support looked like an oversized bird cage, and was constructed of steel hoops banded together.
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
91-2
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. “Wife Overboard”. London Review of Books, LRB, 20 Jan. 2000, pp. 35-6.
36

16 April 1860: King Victor Emmanuel II made his triumphal...

National or international item

16 April 1860

King Victor Emmanuel II made his triumphal entry into Florence.
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
110

12 April 1945: President Roosevelt died, and Vice-President...

National or international item

12 April 1945

President Roosevelt died, and Vice-President Harry S. Truman became President of the US.
Messenger, Charles. World War Two Chronological Atlas: When, Where, How and Why. Bloomsbury, 1989.
220
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
395
Keegan, John. The Second World War. Viking, 1990.
536

1893: The Women's Co-operative Guild (WCG) held...

National or international item

1893

The Women's Co-operative Guild (WCG) held its first independent Congress at Leicester.
Webb, Catherine. The Woman with the Basket: The History of the Women’s Co-operative Guild 1883-1927. Co-operative Wholesale Society’s Printing Works, 1927.
146-8
Scott, Gillian. Feminism and the Politics of Working Women: The Women’s Cooperative Guild, 1880s to the Second World War. UCL Press, 1998.
76

1839: Electrotyping processes were invented independently...

Writer or writing item

1839

Electrotyping processes were invented independently of one another by H. Von Jacobi of St. Petersburg, Thomas Spencer of Liverpool, and C. J. Jordan of London.
Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. Cassell, 1969.
145

5 November 1686: Mother Frances Bedingfield (using, for safety,...

Building and people item

5 November 1686

Mother Frances Bedingfield (using, for safety, the alias Frances Long) signed the contract for the purchase of property on the site of the present Bar Convent in York, to use as a girls' school .
Gregory, M., and Isobel Grundy. Email about Mother Mary Davies to Isobel Grundy. 19 Apr. 2002.
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy. Oxford University Press, 1993.
199

Elizabeth Walker

EW 's writings, dating from the later seventeenth century, comprise diary entries, prayers, meditations, letters, memoirs of early life, writings about her husband, her children and herself, and religious advice designed for them.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

1903-1907: Alice Guy-Blaché, the first ever woman film...

Building and people item

1903-1907

Alice Guy-Blaché , the first ever woman film director, was the head of production at the Gaumont Company studios in London.
Robinson, David. The History of World Cinema. Stein and Day, 1981.
77

By June 1962: The American Joseph Heller published the...

Writer or writing item

By June 1962

The American Joseph Heller published the highly successful Catch 22, an anti-war novel which combines political protest with farcical humour.
“Battle and the Bomb”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3146, 15 June 1962, p. 441.
441

1861: Francis Turner Palgrave edited and published...

Writer or writing item

1861

Francis Turner Palgrave edited and published The Golden Treasury of Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
732

13 March 1895: Arthur Wing Pinero's New Woman play The Notorious...

Writer or writing item

13 March 1895

Arthur Wing Pinero 's New Woman play The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith opened at the Garrick Theatre in London.
Chothia, Jean, editor. The New Woman and Other Emancipated Woman Plays. Oxford University Press, 1998.
62

Some time between 1642 and 1648: The ballad The Valiant Commander, with his...

Building and people item

Some time between 1642 and 1648

The ballad The Valiant Commander, with his Resolute Lady related the story of a royalist woman who insisted on fighting though her husband urged her to flee.
Dugaw, Dianne. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry 1650-1850. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
45-7

1880: George Eastman, an American, perfected the...

Building and people item

1880

George Eastman , an American, perfected the use of dry plates in photography and set up a company to produce them in industrial quantities.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/.
Williams, Val, and Susan Bright. How We Are: Photographing Britain. Tate Publishing, 2007.
202

27 May 1703: Peter the Great founded a fortress at a site...

National or international item

27 May 1703

Peter the Great founded a fortress at a site on the Baltic Sea chosen for its strategic importance. This grew into the city of St Petersburg (called not after the tsar but after Saints Peter...

Margaret Atwood

Well before the end of the twentieth century MA had become one of Canada's leading writers in multiple genres. She now writes for a global audience who read her more than forty novels , poetry,short...
Margaret Atwood Black-and-white photo of Margaret Atwood standing at a podium and speaking into a microphone, gesturing with her hands, 5 April 1973.