Explore Orlando

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.

16 July 1985: The Surrogacy Arrangements Act criminalised...

National or international item

16 July 1985

The Surrogacy Arrangements Act criminalised commercial surrogate motherhood in the UK.
Law Reports: Statutes. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1866–2026.
(1985): 1067-8, 1070-1
Spallone, Patricia. Beyond Conception: The New Politics of Reproduction. Bergin and Garvey, 1989.
82

1911: Gertrude Minnie Faulding wrote verse for...

Women writers item

1911

Gertrude Minnie Faulding wrote verse for Nature Children. A Flower Book for Little Folks, illustrated by Eleanor S. March .
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

10 July-17 August 1943: Allied troops captured Sicily in a series...

National or international item

10 July-17 August 1943

Allied troops captured Sicily in a series of hard-fought battles.
Messenger, Charles. World War Two Chronological Atlas: When, Where, How and Why. Bloomsbury, 1989.
148-9
Keegan, John. The Second World War. Viking, 1990.
346-9

Mary Collier

MC , writing during the earlier eighteenth century, is the first of the known proletarian women poets. Her best-known work is a powerful modern georgic; she also published occasional poems, some of them proto-feminist, and...
Mary Collier A painting that depicts just one aspect of the gruelling women's work that Mary Collier wrote of: "The Washerwoman" byJean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin.

Joan Aiken

JA was a popular and successful later twentieth-century writer of short stories and longer fictions for children, most of which are fantasies or have strong supernatural or mystery elements. She also wrote adult novels (both...
Joan Aiken Black and white photo of Joan Aiken. She stands in front of iron railings like a park fence, with trees behind it. She wears a turtleneck, blazer, and necklace, and has a stern or serious look.

1844: The anonymous publication of Robert Chambers's...

Writer or writing item

1844

The anonymous publication of Robert Chambers 's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation influenced the evolutionary thinking of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace .
Hellemans, Alexander, and Bryan Bunch. The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science. Simon and Shuster, 1988.
310
Yeo, Richard. Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge, and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
113-14, 232-3
Hill, Rosemary. “Snakes and Leeches”. London Review of Books, Vol.
40
, No. 1, 4 Jan. 2018, pp. 23-5.
25

Anne Evans: Biography

AE was a witty poet and skilled composer of dance songs in the mid to late nineteenth century; she also wrote letters and epigrams. She is known for one posthumously published collection of verses and...

1921: Sir Edward Elgar opened the original His...

Building and people item

1921

Sir Edward Elgar opened the original His Master's Voice or HMV shop in London, selling gramophone records.
“Company of the Month: HMV”. Pearson and Longman’s Business World.

26 June to 5 July 1899: The International Council of Women sponsored...

Building and people item

26 June to 5 July 1899

The International Council of Women sponsored the International Congress of Women , a ten-day conference held at Westminster Town Hall in London. Those attending included Susan B. Anthony , Sidney Webb , Josephine Butler

16 October 1908: Samuel F. Cody of the US was the first to...

National or international item

16 October 1908

Samuel F. Cody of the US was the first to fly an airplane in the British Isles; he took off from Farnborough, Hampshire.
Harris, Melvin. ITN Book of Firsts. Michael O’Mara Books, 1994.
46
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
340
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
8 August 2012

2 September 1898: General Herbert Kitchener led the UK forces...

National or international item

2 September 1898

General Herbert Kitchener led the UK forces in the Battle of Omdurman, and the capture of Khartoum.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 590, 731-4
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
869

31 August 1916: The wildly successful Chu Chin Chow, a musical...

Building and people item

31 August 1916

The wildly successful Chu Chin Chow, a musical extravaganza based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, opened in London.
Barker, Clive. “Theatre and society: the Edwardian legacy, the First World War and the inter-war years”. British Theatre between the Wars, 1918-1939, edited by Clive Barker and Maggie B. Gale, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 4-37.
12-13

29 January 1820: King George III died and George IV (already...

National or international item

29 January 1820

King George III died and George IV (already Regent) assumed the throne.
Haydn, Joseph. Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. Editor Vincent, Benjamin, 23rd ed., Ward, Lock, 1904.
426
Burney, Frances. The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay). Editors Hemlow, Joyce and Althea Douglas, Clarendon Press, 1972–1984, 12 vols.
xi, 151
Fryde, Edmund Boleslaw. Handbook of British Chronology. Editors Greenway, D. E. et al., 3rd ed., Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1986.
46

9 October 1731: The Barbados Gazette, edited by Samuel Keimer,...

Women writers item

9 October 1731

The Barbados Gazette, edited by Samuel Keimer , published its first issue.
Overton, Bill, editor. A Letter to My Love. University of Delaware Press, 2001.
13-14, and n8

1970: Three touchstones of US feminist theory were...

Writer or writing item

1970

Three touchstones of US feminist theory were published: Shulamith Firestone 's The Dialectic of Sex and Robin Morgan 's anthology Sisterhood is Powerful, as well as Kate Millett 's Sexual Politics.
Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. Dial, 1999.
152

February 2001: At the International Criminal Court in The...

National or international item

February 2001

At the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Justice Florence Mumba passed sentence on three Bosnian Serb soldiers for systematically raping Muslim women in 1992.
Baxandall, Rosalyn. “Wide World of Women”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
xix
, No. 9, June 2002, pp. 7-8.
7

1807: The world's first scheduled passenger service...

Building and people item

1807

The world's first scheduled passenger service by steamboat opened, plying up the Hudson River from Manhattan, New York.
Jones, Jonathan. “A river runs through it”. Guardian Weekly, 7–13 Mar. 2002, p. 16.
16

28 October 2008: Nina Sankovitch, an American woman with a...

Writer or writing item

28 October 2008

Nina Sankovitch , an American woman with a law degree, a job, and a family, embarked on her forty-sixth birthday on a year of reading a book a day and posting an online review of...

1735: An all-female conger or group of publishers...

Building and people item

1735

An all-female conger or group of publishers (including Elizabeth Nutt and Anne Dodd ) got together to finance the expensive Annotations on the Holy Bible.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
43

Kate Marsden

A nurse and explorer, KM published a small but widely-circulated body of travel writing that at once documented her search for treatments for leprosy and served as tools for her to raise funds and awareness...
Kate Marsden Black and white photo of Kate Marsden, 1906, shown from the waist up, wearing a dark dress speckled with ornament, with her dark hair pulled up and topped by a white headdress and long veil pushed back. She holds a bouquet. Her name is written in a top corner: "Marsden, July 13. 1906."

27 February 1776: A woman's artificial mountain of powdered...

Building and people item

27 February 1776

A woman's artificial mountain of powdered and ornamented hair saved her from serious injury when she was hit by a liquor keg thrown from the upper gallery at Covent Garden Theatre .
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
4: 1955-6

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

In a prolific output filling the latter part of the nineteenth century, United States author ESP explored a range of interests in her more than fifty fiction and non-fiction books and hundreds of magazine stories...
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Black and white photograph of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, that allows only her head to be clearly seen emerging from a white collar which fades into the pale background. Her hair is pulled smoothly back, her head turned alertly a little to the side.

1878-1893: Jean-Martin Charcot gave increasingly popular...

Building and people item

1878-1893

Jean-Martin Charcot gave increasingly popular public lectures on hysteria at La Salpêtrière in Paris.
Micale, Mark S. Approaching Hysteria: Disease and its Interpretations. Princeton University Press, 1995, http://HSS.
24-5
Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel. “Gentlemen’s Spleen”. London Review of Books, Vol.
31
, No. 16, 27 Aug. 2009, pp. 25-7.
25-6

10 February 1897: The Victorian Order of Nurses was founded...

Building and people item

10 February 1897

The Victorian Order of Nurses was founded to commemorate the Queen 's diamond jubilee.
“A Century of Caring”. Victorian Order of Nurses.

3 January 1831: London Society was introduced to the management...

Building and people item

3 January 1831

London Society was introduced to the management of Lucia Vestris at the Olympic Theatre with the opening of Olympic Revels; or, Prometheus and Pandora.
Moody, Jane. “Illusions of authorship”. Women and Playwriting in Nineteenth-Century Britain, edited by Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 99-124.
104-5