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.

Early January 1959: Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government...

National or international item

Early January 1959

Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government in Cuba; he remained in power beyond the end of the century.
Kinder, Hermann, and Werner Hilgemann. The Anchor Atlas of World History. Translator Menze, Ernest A., Vol.
2
, Anchor, 1978.
II: 271
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
258

12 October 2015: The film Suffragette opened at the London...

Building and people item

12 October 2015

The film Suffragette opened at the London Film Festival, written by Abi Morgan and directed by Sarah Gavron .
Elliott, Edward. “Deeds not words: Forthright new film ’Suffragette’ feels like a fiery call to arms”. Oxford Today, 16 Oct. 2015.

1550: Giovan Francesco Straparola published the...

Writer or writing item

1550

Giovan Francesco Straparola published the first volume of Pleasant Nights.
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. 4th Edition, J. M. Dent, 1958, 12 vols.

1887: The New Century Guild for Working Women began...

Building and people item

1887

The New Century Guild for Working Women began publishing, in London, the Working Woman's Journal, which offered articles about work from the employees' perspective.
Franck, Irene, and David Brownstone. Women’s World: A Timeline of Women in History. HarperCollins; HarperPerennial, 1995.
205

April 2005: Béa González, Spanish-born Canadian novelist,...

Writer or writing item

April 2005

Béa González , Spanish-born Canadian novelist, published her second novel, the magic-realist The Mapmaker's Opera, set in late nineteenth-century Spain and Mexico. Her first was The Bitter Taste of Time, 1998.
Canton, Jeffrey. “Reviews. The Mapmaker’s Opera by Béa Gonzalez”. Quill and Quire, Apr. 2005.
“Playwrights. Victor Kazan”. doollee.com.

1 May 1725: Nathaniel Mist's Opposition paper The Weekly...

Building and people item

1 May 1725

Nathaniel Mist 's Opposition paper The Weekly Journal; or, Saturday's-Post changed its name to Mist's Weekly Journal.
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.

1964: The Public Libraries and Museums Act provided...

Writer or writing item

1964

The Public Libraries and Museums Act provided for the setting up and staffing of free public libraries all over England and Wales, centrally controlled by the Secretary of State.
Public Libraries and Museums Act. HMSO, 1964.

1709: An Act of Parliament for Enlarging the Capital...

Writer or writing item

1709

An Act of Parliamentfor Enlarging the Capital Stock of the Bank of England is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as its first use of capital in the sense of financial assets in hand.
Oxford English Dictionary Online. http://dictionary.oed.com/.

1934: Constance Spry published her first book,...

Building and people item

1934

Constance Spry published her first book, How To Do the Flowers, preaching the gospel of informal flower arrangement, with the use of trailing foliage and unexpected elements.
Brown, Jane. The Pursuit of Paradise: A Social History of Gardens and Gardening. HarperCollins, 2000.
131-3
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.

12 May 1863: During the US Civil War, a bullet allegedly...

Building and people item

12 May 1863

During the US Civil War, a bullet allegedly first carried away the left testis
Oakley, Ann. Telling the Truth about Jerusalem. Basil Blackwell, 1986.
8
of an already-wounded soldier, then hit the body of a young nurse and impregnated her with the soldier's sperm.
Oakley, Ann. Telling the Truth about Jerusalem. Basil Blackwell, 1986.
8

December 1985: Science writer John Langone argued in Discoverer...

Building and people item

December 1985

Science writer John Langone argued in Discoverer that women were not normally at risk from AIDS, since the vagina is rugged although the anus is fragile.
Koelsch, Patrice Clark. “Mortal Combats”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
xvii
, No. 6, Mar. 2000, pp. 18-20.
18-19

Isak Dinesen

ID , cosmopolitan fiction-writer of the mid twentieth century writing in Danish and English, produced short stories in periodicals and collections, a couple of novels, and two highly unusual books about Africa in which the...
Isak Dinesen Black and white photograph of Isak Dinesen. She is shown from the shoulders up, and she wears a fur stole and fur hat, with pearl earrings.

1 July 1813: The Charter Act proclaimed the undoubted...

National or international item

1 July 1813

The Charter Act proclaimed the undoubted sovereignty of the Crown of the United Kingdom
Marshall, Peter James. Problems of Empire: Britain and India, 1757-1813. Allen and Unwin, 1968.
31
over British India, removing from the East India Company its trade monopoly in that country. .
Marshall, Peter James. Problems of Empire: Britain and India, 1757-1813. Allen and Unwin, 1968.
31, 101
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
83 (1813): ii: 69

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

MEB made her name, scandalously, in the early 1860s as a founder of the intricately plotted sensation novel, and was particularly known for her transgressive heroines. Although still most strongly associated with this and the...
Mary Elizabeth Braddon Painting of Mary Elizabeth Braddon by William Powell Frith, exhibited 1865. She stands beside a desk with writing materials and stacks of books, looking at the viewer, in a long dark dress. The wall behind her and the desk chair are red. Her red-brown hair is coiled over her ears, and her clasped hands hold a handkerchief. National Portrait Gallery.

1885: The Victoria Street Society, an anti-vivisection...

Building and people item

1885

The Victoria Street Society , an anti-vivisection organisation, issued 81,672 books, pamphlets, and leaflets in this year alone.
French, Richard D. Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press, 1975.
255

1851: In a novel entitled The Female Jesuit, or,...

Building and people item

1851

In a novel entitled The Female Jesuit, or, a Spy in the Family, Jemima Luke presents a Roman Catholic young woman, Marie, taken in by a Protestant family, where she makes all kinds of trouble.
Peschier, Diana. “Vulnerable Women and the Danger of Gliding Jesuits: England in the Nineteenth Century”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
11
, No. 2, 2004, pp. 281-0.
285-6

22 May 1940: In the Extended Employment for Women Agreement,...

Building and people item

22 May 1940

In the Extended Employment for Women Agreement, unions in the engineering industry concurred that for the duration of the war, women would be allowed into male-exclusive jobs.
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.
216
Summerfield, Penny. Women Workers in the Second World War: Production and Patriarchy in Conflict. Croom Helm, 1984.
193-4

Isabella Hamilton Robinson

IHR 's diary acquired notoriety after it was found to contain details of her relationship with a younger, married doctor and after it was made public in the Divorce Court (at a moment when divorce...

August-September 1603: In another outbreak of bubonic plague, 33,500...

Building and people item

August-September 1603

In another outbreak of bubonic plague, 33,500 people (a tenth of the population) died in London.
Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714. Sphere Books, 1969.
278
Callow, Simon. “Every man in his humour”. The Guardian, 26 Aug. 2006, p. Review 7.
Review 7

1770: A parliamentary Select Committee on burglaries...

Building and people item

1770

A parliamentary Select Committee on burglaries made its report.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
10

11 May 1946: After being severely damaged by bombing in...

Building and people item

11 May 1946

After being severely damaged by bombing in 1943, the opera-house Teatro alla Scala in Milan (La Scala) re-opened with a concert conducted by Toscanini .
“Teatro alla Scala”. Welcome to Italy: Lombardy: Milan.

28 September 1786: A hostile and sexually suggestive cartoon...

Building and people item

28 September 1786

A hostile and sexually suggestive cartoon was published, depicting Mrs Fitzherbert dispensing venereal remedies to the Prince of Wales .
Merians, Linda E. “Introduction”. The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France, edited by Linda E. Merians, University Press of Kentucky, 1996, pp. 1-12.
2

By 26 April 2006: A novel issued in March in the USA, How Opal...

Writer or writing item

By 26 April 2006

A novel issued in March in the USA, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, was withdrawn after the author, Kaavya Viswanathan , admitted unconscious plagiarism from Megan McCafferty .
Goldenberg, Suzanne. “Star young author admits ’unconscious’ plagiarism”. Guardian Unlimited, 26 Apr. 2006.

4 May 1949: Norman Mailer published a novel about a US...

Writer or writing item

4 May 1949

Norman Mailer published a novel about a US assault and short campaign in the Philippines during World War Two: The Naked and the Dead.
“Under Fire”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 2468, 20 May 1949, p. 325.
325
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
4 May 2009

10 December 1929: For his discovery of growth-stimulating vitamins,...

National or international item

10 December 1929

For his discovery of growth-stimulating vitamins, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins from Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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/.