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1880: The Guildhall School of Music was founded...

Building and people item

1880

The Guildhall School of Music was founded by the Corporation of London; its first role was to train amateurs in music, but it quickly became the training ground for professional musicians and singers.
Arnold, Denis, editor. The New Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford University Press, 1983.
Sadie, Stanley, editor. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 6th ed., Macmillan, 1980, 20 vols.

Summer 1978: Shrew, also titled Harpies Bizarre, and Bird,...

Building and people item

Summer 1978

Shrew, also titled Harpies Bizarre, and Bird, ended publication in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
67

15 September 1924: The BBC began broadcasting in Belfast, Northern...

Building and people item

15 September 1924

The BBC began broadcasting in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
366
Cathcart, Rex. The Most Contrary Region: The BBC in Northern Ireland 1924-1984. Blackstaff Press, 1984.
1

By 1834: Amalgam, a mercury alloy, was being used...

Building and people item

By 1834

Amalgam, a mercury alloy, was being used as a material for filling teeth.
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.
301

2 November 1908: Sidgwick and Jackson Limited at 3 Adam Street,...

Writer or writing item

2 November 1908

Sidgwick and Jackson Limited at 3 Adam Street, Adelphi, London was incorporated by Frank Sidgwick and Robert Cameron Jackson .
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
307
Mumby, Frank Arthur, and Ian Norrie. Mumby’s Publishing and Bookselling in the Twentieth Century. 6th ed., Bell and Hyman, 1982.
59

19 July 1797: Stamp Duty (the tax imposed by the Stamp...

National or international item

19 July 1797

Stamp Duty (the tax imposed by the Stamp Act) on periodicals was raised from twopence to threepence halfpenny a sheet.
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
141
Nevett, Terry R. Advertising in Britain: A History. Heinemann, 1982.
25
The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Printed by J. Bentham, 1762–2026.
45: 41

6 September 1968: Swaziland gained its independence from B...

National or international item

6 September 1968

Swaziland gained its independence from Britain.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
263

1957: Thalidomide was first put on the market in...

National or international item

1957

Thalidomide was first put on the market in Germany, as a sedative, under the brand name Contergan.
Hindell, Keith, and Madeleine Simms. Abortion Law Reformed. Peter Owen, 1971.
108

1872: Gustave Doré published illustrations to William...

Writer or writing item

1872

Gustave Doré published illustrations to William Blanchard Jerrold 's London: A Pilgrimage, which vividly catch the two extremes of wealth and poverty, splendour and misery.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
285, 508
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Doré

: Peter Brook directed at Stratford upon Avon...

Building and people item

Spring 1970

Peter Brook directed at Stratford upon Avon a production of Shakespeare 's Midsummer Night's Dream which redefined the possibilities of theatre.
Callow, Simon. “A Prospero for our time”. Guardian Unlimited, 2 Apr. 2005.

Late June 1661: Sir William Davenant's theatre company, the...

Building and people item

Late June 1661

Sir William Davenant 's theatre company, the Duke's , opened at a new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, after some months at the Salisbury Court theatre.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
1: 15-16
Sutherland, James. English Literature of the Late Seventeenth Century. Clarendon Press, 1969.
33

23 November 1552: Christ's Hospital was founded in London to...

Building and people item

23 November 1552

Christ's Hospital was founded in London to supply meat, drink, clothes, lodging, learning, and attendants for children of the poor, both boys and girls.
Pedersen, Joyce Senders. The Reform of Girls’ Secondary and Higher Education in Victorian England: A Study of Elites and Educational Change. Garland, 1987.
38
Borer, Mary Cathcart. Willingly to School: A History of Women’s Education. Lutterworth Press, 1976.
58, 56-64, 133-4

By about 1825: The number of commercially-produced Valentine...

Building and people item

By about 1825

The number of commercially-produced Valentine cards or messages sent in mid-decade in London alone had reached about 200,000.
Flynn, Amanda. “Sweet and Sour Commodities: Nineteenth-Century Valentines in the John Johnson Collection of Ephemera”. Bodleian Library Record, Vol.
23
, No. 1, Apr. 2010, pp. 64-9.
65

1 January 1930: The Daily Worker, newspaper of the British...

Building and people item

1 January 1930

The Daily Worker, newspaper of the British Communist Party , issued its first number; its last number appeared on 23 April 1966, after which the name changed to the Morning Star.
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. 4th Edition, J. M. Dent, 1958, 12 vols.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

April 1974: The first number of Ian Hamilton's New Review...

Writer or writing item

April 1974

The first number of Ian Hamilton 's New Review (successor to The Review) included contributions from Dan Jacobson and Edna O'Brien ; it ran for fifty issues, ending in 1979.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Jacobson, Dan. “The Price”. London Review of Books, 21 Feb. 2002, pp. 22-8.
25

26 February 1839: The first Grand National steeplechase was...

Building and people item

26 February 1839

The first Grand National steeplechase was run at Aintree in Lancashire, near Liverpool.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
264

14 March 1879: Albert Einstein, formulator of the theory...

Building and people item

14 March 1879

Albert Einstein , formulator of the theory of relativity, was born in Ulm, Germany.
“St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture”. Gale Databases: Gale Virtual Reference Library.

30 May 1941: At the instigation of Charles de Gaulle,...

National or international item

30 May 1941

At the instigation of Charles de Gaulle , the feast-day of Saint Joan of Arc was marked in Nazi -occupied France by informal groups of people walking the streets of our towns and our villages...

23 February 1848: Fourteen-year-old Fleeming Jenkin (son of...

Building and people item

23 February 1848

Fourteen-year-old Fleeming Jenkin (son of the writer Henrietta Camilla Jenkin and a future distinguished scientist), caught up in the February Revolution, noted the number and variety of women among the street mobs.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Fleeming Jenkin. “Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin”. Papers, Literary, Scientific, &c., edited by Sir Sidney Colvin et al., Longmans, Green, 1877, p. 1: xi - clxx.
xxxiv

1799: The Evangelical movement founded the Religious...

National or international item

1799

The Evangelical movement founded the Religious Tract Society , with the object of publishing texts for the salvation of sinners.
Bradley, Ian. The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians. Jonathan Cape, 1976.
42-3, 36

1903: Sidecars made their first appearance on ...

National or international item

1903

Sidecars made their first appearance on motorcycles.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
156

John Strange Winter

Best known for her early military fiction, JSW (nom de plume of Henrietta Palmer, later Stannard) was a prolific and popular author of over a hundred novels and volumes of short stories. Writing in the...

August-September 1846: William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Rebecca...

Writer or writing item

August-September 1846

William Makepeace Thackeray 's novel Rebecca and Rowena, a sequel to Scott 's Ivanhoe, was serialised in Fraser's Magazine.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.

2 June 1953: Queen Elizabeth II was crowned; the BBC's...

National or international item

2 June 1953

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned; the BBC 's coverage of this, the first televised coronation, was carried live in the UK, France, the Netherlands and West Germany.
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
383
Harris, Melvin. ITN Book of Firsts. Michael O’Mara Books, 1994.
130

28 June 1939: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) was...

National or international item

28 June 1939

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) was established for duty with the all-male Royal Air Force (RAF) in time of war. It was mobilized two months later, and in the Second World War gave a...