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January 1762: James Macpherson published Fingal, an Ancient...

Writer or writing item

January 1762

James Macpherson published Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Six Books., which purported to be the work of the ancient bard Ossian .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
13 (1762): 45-53
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1766: Jeanne Baret (or Barret or Bonnefoy), disguised...

National or international item

1766

Jeanne Baret (or Barret or Bonnefoy), disguised as the male valet and botanical assistant to Philibert Commerson , set sail with the voyage of discovery of de Bougainville , eventually becoming the first woman to...

1940: Rosalind Wade published another of the more...

Women writers item

1940

Rosalind Wade published another of the more than thirty novels under her own name, Fairweather Faith.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
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.

September 1884: Carl Koller gave convincing demonstrations...

Building and people item

September 1884

Carl Koller gave convincing demonstrations at the Heidelberg Ophthalmological Society that cocaine was a useful local anaesthetic for surgical procedures.
Parssinen, Terry M. Secret Passions, Secret Remedies: Narcotic Drugs in British Society 1820-1930. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1983.
117
Shryock, Richard Harrison. The Development of Modern Medicine: An Interpretation of the Social and Scientific Factors Involved. University of Wisconsin Press, 1979.
177
Berridge, Virginia, and Griffith Edwards. Opium and the People: Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England. St Martin’s Press, 1981.
219-20

March - May 1964: The Whitechapel Gallery in East London held...

Building and people item

March - May 1964

The Whitechapel Gallery in East London held its New Generation show, featuring among its twelve exhibitors the work of Bridget Riley and David Hockney .
“Exhibitions 1950 - Present”. Whitechapel Gallery.
Spurling, Hilary. “’Mt aim is to make people feel alive’”. Guardian Weekly, 7 Jan. 2011, pp. 34-5.
34

1915: The first plastic surgery ward in Britain...

Building and people item

1915

The first plastic surgery ward in Britain opened at the Cambridge Hospital at Aldershot, in response to the huge numbers of patients with facial deformities created by the First World War.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
352

1676: Tachmas, Prince of Persia: An Historical...

Writer or writing item

1676

Tachmas, Prince of Persia: An Historical Novel (a translation by P. Porter from the French of Jean Renaud de Segrais ) marks an early use of this genre term.
Downie, James Alan. “Mary Davys’s ’Probable Feign’d Stories’ and Critical Shibboleths about ’The Rise of the Novel’”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
12
, No. 2-3, Jan.–Apr. 2000, pp. 309-26.
311
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

16 December 1653: Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector...

National or international item

16 December 1653

Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of Great Britain and Ireland.
Fryde, Edmund Boleslaw. Handbook of British Chronology. Editors Greenway, D. E. et al., 3rd ed., Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1986.
44
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
185

16 August 1878: The Intermediate Education (Ireland) Act...

National or international item

16 August 1878

The Intermediate Education (Ireland) Act was passed, containing an initial recognition of the principle that girls and women had the right to sit for public competitive examinations and to take university degrees.
Jordan, Alison. “‘Opening the Gates of Learning’: The Belfast Ladies’ Institute, 1867-97”. Coming into the Light: The Work, Politics and Religion of Women in Ulster, 1840-1940, edited by Janice Holmes and Diane Urquhart, The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1994, pp. 33-57.
49-50
The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Printed by J. Bentham, 1762–2026.

October 1689: Habeas Corpus was suspended until late the...

National or international item

October 1689

Habeas Corpus was suspended until late the following year. When the suspension ended, a court (that ofJustice Holt ) began reconsidering cases of those imprisoned for crimes against the state, and released 80 percent of them.
Bingham, Tom. “’This in no wise omit’”. London Review of Books, Vol.
32
, No. 19, 7 Oct. 2010, pp. 17-19.
19

Early November 1848: Frederick William IV of Prussia replaced...

National or international item

Early November 1848

Frederick William IV of Prussia replaced his liberal ministers with a conservative government which adjourned the Constituent Assembly.
Cowie, Leonard W., and Leonard Woolfson. Years of Nationalism: European History 1815-1890. Edward Arnold, 1985.
173

Jane Taylor

JT , a writer of poems for children when she was little more than a child herself, saw herself in adulthood as first and foremost a Christian writer, seeking to change the lives of her...
Jane Taylor Photograph of the painting of Jane Taylor and her older sister (later Ann Taylor Gilbert) by their father, Isaac, May 1792. The girls wear matching white dresses with puffed sleeves, lace edged necklines, and pink ribbons round the waist, tied in a bow at the back. Both have wavy blonde hair, and Jane clasps a bunch of pink flowers. Behind are trees, grass, and in the distance the rest of the family clustered around a gazebo. National Portrait Gallery.

July 1972: The premier issue of Ms. was published, featuring...

National or international item

July 1972

The premier issue of Ms. was published, featuring a description of the consciousness raising or "c.r." group organization tactics advocated by associations like the Redstockings throughout the early 1970s.
Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. Dial, 1999.
79

July 1855: Alfred Tennyson published Maud and Other...

Writer or writing item

July 1855

Alfred Tennyson published Maud and Other Poems.
Tennyson, Alfred. Tennyson’s Poetry. Editor Hill, Robert W., Jr, W. W. Norton, 1971.
213
Eliot, George. Essays of George Eliot. Editor Pinney, Thomas, Columbia University Press, 1963.
197

1798: Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published...

Building and people item

1798

Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published in LondonAn Essay on the Principle of Population, which later attached his name to the birth control movement.
Tannahill, Reay. Sex in History. Stein and Day, 1980.
406
Fryer, Peter. The Birth Controllers. Secker and Warburg, 1965.
70
Graham, Kenneth W. “Beckford, Godwin, Austen, and the Divisive 1790s”. Persuasions, Vol.
24
, 2002, pp. 33-46.
37
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
228-9
Shapin, Steven. “Libel on the Human Race”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 11, 5 June 2015, pp. 26-9.

4 December 1845: The position of Peel's Conservative government...

National or international item

4 December 1845

The position of Peel 's Conservative government was severely shaken by a report in the Times that it was about to repeal the Corn Laws.
Chedzoy, Alan. A Scandalous Woman: The Story of Caroline Norton. Allison and Busby, 1995.
215-17

22-24 July 1933: Newlywed pilots Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison...

Building and people item

22-24 July 1933

Newlywed pilots Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison made the first direct flight from Britain to the United States.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
221

Olivia Clarke

OC , sister of the more famous Irish writer Sydney Morgan , reads like an eighteenth-century writer though she was active in the early nineteenth century. She produced spirited light verse (always good-humoured though sometimes...

3 May 1661: John Evelyn was shown a wonderfull engine...

Building and people item

3 May 1661

John Evelyn was shown a wonderfull engine for weaving silk stockings, said to have been invented at Oxford forty years earlier.
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
422

15 March 1939: Talks were in progress between Courtaulds...

Building and people item

15 March 1939

Talks were in progress between Courtaulds and Imperial Chemical Industries about the proposed manufacture in Britain of fibre made of nylon, a new synthetic product announced last October in the USA.
“15 March 1939. Nylon touted as silk substitute”. Guardian Weekly, 15 Mar. 2013, p. 22.

7 December 1666: More than a hundred Covenanters were found...

National or international item

7 December 1666

More than a hundred Covenanters were found guilty of rebellion and sentenced to be hanged with particular brutality from the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.
The Covenanters: The Fifty Years Struggle 1638-1688. http://www.sorbie.net/covenanters.htm.

1917: The Iconoclast, a feminist novel by Helen...

Women writers item

1917

The Iconoclast, a feminist novel by Helen Hamilton , was published.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1879: Thomas Burberry patented an impervious, breathable,...

Building and people item

1879

Thomas Burberry patented an impervious, breathable, virtually indestructible fabric he called gaberdine (spelled gabardine in the USA).
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
87

1704: Joseph Pitts published at Exeter (his home...

Building and people item

1704

Joseph Pitts published at Exeter (his home town) A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, the fruit of years of experience as a Barbary captive and Islamic convert.
Pagden, Anthony. “Oak in a Flowerpot”. London Review of Books, 14 Nov. 2002, pp. 9-10.
9
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1771: J. D. T. Bienville published an influential...

Building and people item

1771

J. D. T. Bienville published an influential treatise, Fureurs utérines (also known as Nymphomanie), which ascribed a long and varied list of maladies to the female reproductive system.
Norberg, Kathryn. “From Courtesan to Prostitute: Mercenary Sex and Venereal Disease 1730-1802”. The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France, edited by Linda E. Merians, University Press of Kentucky, 1996, pp. 34-50.
44
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.