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.

Alexander Pope

As well as being a translator, critic, and letter-writer, AP was the major poetic voice of the earlier eighteenth century, an influence on almost everyone who wrote poetry during his lifetime or for some years...
Alexander Pope Half-length painting of Alexander Pope attributed to Jonathan Richardson, c. 1736. He is sitting and looking at the viewer, with a book in his right hand. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

March 2004: Conferring of British nationality was first...

National or international item

March 2004

Conferring of British nationality was first done as a public ceremony, in this case held in the town hall of Brent in North London and attended by the Prince of Wales and the Home Secretary...

1991: Bangladesh appointed its first woman Prime...

National or international item

1991

Bangladesh appointed its first woman Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia .
“Women’s History Timeline”. BBC: Radio 4: Woman’s Hour.

October 1947: Martha Gellhorn published in New Republic...

Writer or writing item

October 1947

Martha Gellhorn published in New Republica magisterial condemnation of McCarthy ism and its implications in the USA.
Fox, Lorna Scott. “No Intention of Retreating”. London Review of Books, 2 Sept. 2004, pp. 26-8.
28

March 1864: The Theological Review: A Quarterly Journal...

Writer or writing item

March 1864

The Theological Review: A Quarterly Journal of Religious Thought and Life was developed by Charles Beard .
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: 93, 505, 507

17 January 1917: A Women's Service demonstration was held...

Building and people item

17 January 1917

A Women's Service demonstration was held in the Albert Hall to appeal to women to engage in war work, and to display their determination to go on doing all that was needed.
Fraser, Helen. Women and War Work. G. A. Shaw, 1918.
100
Fraser, Helen. Women and War Work. G. A. Shaw, 1918.
100-1

November 1993: The Treaty of the European Union (commonly...

National or international item

November 1993

The Treaty of the European Union (commonly known as Maastricht, from the place where the treaty was signed on 7 February 1992) finally came into effect, giving judicial legitimacy to the European Union .
“Maastricht Treaty”. BBC News. In Depth: Euro-glossary, 30 Apr. 2001.

23 January 1783: Marie Henri Beyle (later the novelist Stendhal)...

Writer or writing item

23 January 1783

Marie Henri Beyle (later the novelist Stendhal) was born in Grenoble, France.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
119

1671: The Game Act raised the property qualification...

Building and people item

1671

The Game Act raised the property qualification for hunting and shooting game to ownership of a park, or an income of about £100 a year.
Landry, Donna. Invention of the Countryside: Hunting, Walking, and Ecology in English Literature, 1671-1831. Palgrave, 2001.
73-4

1789-98: Essays in Physiognomy (translated by Henry...

Building and people item

1789-98

Essays in Physiognomy (translated by Henry Hunter from Johann Kaspar Lavater ), with engravings by Johann Heinrich Füssli (known in England as Henry Fuseli), set off crazes for physiognomy and silhouettes.
Donato, Clorinda. “Reading the Face: Lavater in the Twenty-first Century”. Lumen, edited by William Kinsley et al., Vol.
xx
, 2001, pp. 83-100.
83, 89-90, 91, 97 and n12

1 May 1707: England and Scotland were united by the Act...

National or international item

1 May 1707

England and Scotland were united by the Act of Union.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
159
Journals of the House of Commons. Printed by order of the House of Commons.
15: 258, 512, 543

15 October 1662: John Evelyn made a presentation to the Royal...

Building and people item

15 October 1662

John Evelyn made a presentation to the Royal Society on the deforestation of England and the need to plant trees; this was the germ of his Sylva, Or A Discourse Of Forest Trees, which...

1882: Mr J. J. Fenwick opened his exclusive draper's...

Building and people item

1882

Mr J. J. Fenwick opened his exclusive draper's shop in Northumberland Street, Newcastle upon Tyne; he was one of the first retailers to have a shop front designed by a prominent architect, W. H. Knowles .
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
205

14 October 1920: A week after the university statutes had...

National or international item

14 October 1920

A week after the university statutes had finally made women eligible for degrees, women graduates of Oxford gathered for the belated award of degrees which they had earned, most of them, years before.

Elizabeth De la Pasture

EDP had a successful career as a popular playwright (few of whose dramas reached print) and novelist. She also wrote short stories for periodicals, and a single story for children which had great success a...
Elizabeth De la Pasture Black and white photograph of Elizabeth De la Pasture, seated outside and flanked by two large dogs. She is wearing a long white dress, with a black band around her waist and artificial flowers on the shoulders, and trailing down one side. A hat with matching flowers is perched on top of her dark hair.

October 1925: The Home Secretary publicly referred to people...

Building and people item

October 1925

The Home Secretary publicly referred to people recently arrested as notorious Communists, contrary to the principle of presumed innocence until proved guilty.
Porter, Bernard. “How the Judges Stood in the Way of Socialism”. London Review of Books, 1 June 2000, pp. 27-8.
27-8

1947: Both the Netherlands and England saw the...

Writer or writing item

1947

Both the Netherlands and England saw the initial publication of Anne Frank 's Diary.
“Women’s History Timeline”. BBC: Radio 4: Woman’s Hour.
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.

5 June 1647: Soldiers of the Parliamentary army took an...

National or international item

5 June 1647

Soldiers of the Parliamentary army took an engagement not to disband; using the captive king as hostage, they began issuing manifestoes calling for army reform and army rule.
Cope, Esther S. Handmaid of the Holy Spirit: Dame Eleanor Davies, Never Soe Mad a Ladie. University of Michigan Press, 1992.
134

1899: Free milk for poor mothers was funded and...

Building and people item

1899

Free milk for poor mothers was funded and organised for the first time in Britain.
Forster, Margaret. Significant Sisters. Secker and Warburg, 1984.
prelims

Bathsheba Bowers

BB , a colonial American Quaker , published just one of the many texts she says she wrote. This work, An Alarm Sounded, 1709, a spiritual autobiography in pamphlet form, is a narrative of...

1952: The American Psychiatric Association, in...

Building and people item

1952

The American Psychiatric Association , in the first edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, classified homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance.
Marshall, Megan. Elizabeth Bishop. A Miracle for Breakfast. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.
107

1823: The Society for the Mitigation and Gradual...

Building and people item

1823

The Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery was formed in London, with the non-confrontational agenda that its name implies.
Corfield, Kenneth. “Elizabeth Heyrick: Radical Quaker”. Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760-1930, edited by Gail Malmgreen, Croom Helm, 1986, pp. 41-67.
41

Mrs F. C. Patrick

Mrs. F. C. Patrick appears to have been an Irishwoman living in England. She published three novels—each unusual in itself and markedly different from the other two—in three successive years during the 1790s.

1969: Slimming, a highly popular magazine about...

Building and people item

1969

Slimming, a highly popular magazine about health and nutrition, began its bi-monthly publication from London by SM Publications .
Winship, Janice. Inside Women’s Magazines. Pandora, 1987.
166
Ferguson, Marjorie. Forever Feminine: Women’s Magazines and the Cult of Femininity. Heinemann, 1983.
24

Charlotte Brooke

Irishwoman CB wrote during the final two decades of the eighteenth century in many genres (including a lost play, a novel, poetry, and letters, the last two mainly religious in tone and subject-matter), but her...