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May 1887: The Westminster Review began publishing as...

Writer or writing item

May 1887

The Westminster Review began publishing as a monthly, abandoning the quarterly format used for the previous sixty-three years.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
3: 553, 663

24 January 1696: The Lord Chamberlain wrote an angry letter...

Building and people item

24 January 1696

The Lord Chamberlain wrote an angry letter urging the Master of the Revels to crack down on comedies for disrespect to authority.
Hume, Robert D. “Jeremy Collier and the Future of the London Theatre in 1698”. British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS) Conference, Oxford, 3 Jan. 1998.

15 June 1953: BBC television made its first broadcast from...

Building and people item

15 June 1953

BBC television made its first broadcast from a ship at sea, during a Royal Naval Review.
BBC Handbook: 1960. BBC, 1960, http://U of A HSS HE 8690 B86.
240

Susannah Gunning

SG began in the mid eighteenth century, at an early age, as a mediocre sentimental novelist: snobbish, stylistically over-elaborate, centring her plots on wished-for ascent to the nobility, and addressing the reader with girlish coyness...

Sara Jeanette Duncan

SJD was a Canadian journalist, poet, and novelist whose work spans the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her writing generally features characters who fail to live up to their own potential, such as Lorne...
Sara Jeanette Duncan Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Sara Jeannette Duncan, wearing a light buttoned blouse with a white flower in her dark curly hair.

March 1755: A committee of twenty-six artists produced...

Building and people item

March 1755

A committee of twenty-six artists produced a plan for an Academy to improve and promote the arts.
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
229-30
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
25 (1755): 127

28 April 1881: Louis Pasteur began experimenting with the...

Building and people item

28 April 1881

Louis Pasteur began experimenting with the immunization of animals.
Duin, Nancy, and Jenny Sutcliffe. A History of Medicine: From Prehistory to the Year 2020. Simon and Schuster, 1992.
57
Bynum, William F. Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
128

10 December 1935: Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot were...

National or international item

10 December 1935

Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their synthesis of new radioactive elements.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
Nobel Prize in Literature. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/.

1884: The London Spiritualist Alliance was fou...

Building and people item

1884

The London Spiritualist Alliance was founded.
Owen, Alex. The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth-Century England. Virago, 1989.
95

10 December 1954: Britain's Max Born, with Walter Bothe of...

National or international item

10 December 1954

Britain's Max Born , with Walter Bothe of Germany, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for research in quantum mechanics; American Linus Pauling was awarded the prize in Chemistry, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1872: In A History of English Literature William...

Writer or writing item

1872

In A History of English LiteratureWilliam Collier , a professor at Trinity College , asserted that all criticism is biographical because it is impossible to separate the author from the book.
Collier, William. A History of English Literature in a Series of Biographical Sketches. James Campbell and Son, 1872.

April 1943: Cosmetics were very scarce and pipecleaners...

Building and people item

April 1943

Cosmetics were very scarce and pipecleaners were put to use as hairpins; the Victory Roll hairstyle eliminated the need for pins.
Minns, Raynes. Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939-45. Virago, 1980.
chronology

1943: All conscripted women in Britain were compelled...

Building and people item

1943

All conscripted women in Britain were compelled to serve in specified industries. In this year the proportion of single women under thirty in paid work rose to the high point of 90 per cent.
Smith, Harold L. “The Effects of the War on the Status of Women”. War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War, edited by Harold L. Smith, Manchester University Press, 1986.
214

November 1963: Hereditary peeresses (those few women inheriting...

National or international item

November 1963

Hereditary peeresses (those few women inheriting a peerage in their own right) were first admitted to the House of Lords .
Eoff, Shirley. Viscountess Rhondda: Equalitarian Feminist. Ohio State University Press, 1991.
88
United Kingdom Parliament. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/.

1829-30: French socialist Charles Fourier published...

Writer or writing item

1829-30

French socialist Charles Fourier published Le nouveau monde industriel et sociétaire.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

By 1955: More than half of British households possessed...

Building and people item

By 1955

More than half of British households possessed a vacuum cleaner, but only eighteen per cent had washing machines and only 8% had refrigerators.
Drabble, Margaret. The Waterfall. Penguin, 1971.
11

: Following an agreement of the British government...

Building and people item

Summer 1953

Following an agreement of the British government to import German cars to the value of two million pounds over the next year, the Volkswagen (or people's car) went on sale in Britain.
“’People’s Car’ makes UK debut”. Guardian Weekly, 8 June 2007, p. 22.
22

16 February 1712: People in Dublin feared the outbreak of Catholic...

National or international item

16 February 1712

People in Dublin feared the outbreak of Catholic rebellion in the west of Ireland.
Montagu, Warren. “Forum”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
10
, No. 1, Oct. 1997, pp. 101-6.
105

From 5 December 1934: Italy (under Mussolini) sent troops to Africa,...

National or international item

From 5 December 1934

Italy (under Mussolini ) sent troops to Africa, where sporadic fighting heralded its colonial invasion of Ethiopia.
Romero, Patricia W. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. Yale University Press, 1987.
221

Ruth Rendell

RR established herself as a leading crime novelist of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To the intricacies of plot characteristic of the genre, she adds a capacity to scare her readers, and a sophisticated focus...
Ruth Rendell Colour photograph of Ruth Rendell, seated at a table with a microphone and a glass of water. She is wearing a fawn jacket, white shirt, and brown trousers. Her is short and blonde.

23 June 1854: Ebenezer Ward and George Lock established...

Writer or writing item

23 June 1854

Ebenezer Ward and George Lock established the publishing house of Ward and Lock at 158 Fleet Street, London, the former premises of David Nutt .
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 321

1968: At the end of Edmund Blunden's tenure of...

Writer or writing item

1968

At the end of Edmund Blunden 's tenure of the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford , Roy Fuller was elected to follow him.
Watts, Janet. “Kathleen Raine”. The Guardian, 8 July 2003, p. 25.
25

July 1795-March 1796: The Second Maroon War took place in Jama...

National or international item

July 1795-March 1796

The Second Maroon War took place in Jamaica.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 22 (1798): 285-9
“The Jamaican Maroons”. History of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia.
“The Second Maroon War”. Windsor Research Centre: Cockpit Country.

Between 1788 and 1792: The historian Edward Gibbon composed no less...

Writer or writing item

Between 1788 and 1792

The historian Edward Gibbon composed no less than six drafts of his autobiography, which remained unpublished during his lifetime.
Pocock, John Greville Agard. “The Ironist”. London Review of Books, 14 Nov. 2002, pp. 13-17.
15

November 1933: An exhibition was held of the urban-domestic...

Building and people item

November 1933

An exhibition was held of the urban-domestic paintings of modern realist Walter Sickert ; Virginia Woolf attended.
Peach, Linden. “Reading Woolfs Camden: Sickert, Urbanism and the Body in The YearsVoyages Out, Voyages Home: The Eleventh Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, Bangor, 14 June 2001.