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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.

1898: Harrods unveiled its moving staircase (an...

Building and people item

1898

Harrods unveiled its moving staircase (an early form of the escalator) to great publicity, astonishment, and delight.
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
234-5

Leigh Hunt

1724: Under a pseudonym, Bernard Mandeville published...

Writer or writing item

1724

Under a pseudonym, Bernard Mandeville published A Modest Defence of Public Stews: or, An Essay upon Whoring, as it is now Practis'd in these Kingdoms.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
99-100
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.
Library of Congress Online Catalog. http://catalog.loc.gov/.
University of Alberta Libraries On-line Catalogue. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/.

By March 1883: The Society for the Suppression of Blasphemous...

Writer or writing item

By March 1883

The Society for the Suppression of Blasphemous Literature was founded.
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
234

1819: A second Factory Act set limits to the hours...

Building and people item

1819

A second Factory Act set limits to the hours that could be legally worked by children.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
89 (1819): 164

1888: Americans John Wesley Hyatt and John Carbutt...

Building and people item

1888

Americans John Wesley Hyatt and John Carbutt produced clear sheets of celluloid for commercial use in photography.
Singer, Charles et al., editors. A History of Technology. Clarendon, 1958, 8 vols.
5: 729
Sources give conflicting dates for Parke's discovery of celluloid: either 1826, 1855, or 1861.
Panati, Charles. Panati’s Browser’s Book of Beginnings. Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
366
Derry, Thomas Kingston, and Trevor I. Williams. A Short History of Technology From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900. Clarendon, 1960.
658
Singer, Charles et al., editors. A History of Technology. Clarendon, 1958, 8 vols.
vol. 5
).

Elizabeth Singer Rowe

ESR wrote witty, topical, satirical poetry during the 1690s, followed later in life by letters, essays, fiction (often epistolary), and a wide range of poetic modes, often though not invariably with a moral or religious...
Elizabeth Singer Rowe Transcription by Elizabeth Carter of a poem by Elizabeth Rowe, on paper surrounded by a deep blue background. "To Lady Brooke" reads in part: "your Looks appear / Artless as Virtue undisguised & clear / Bright as your sparkling Wit your lovely Eyes / Like that they please . . . .”

1717: Daniel Turner published Syphilis: A Practical...

Building and people item

1717

Daniel Turner published Syphilis: A Practical Dissertation on the Venereal Disease.
Wilson, Philip K. “Exposing the Secret Disease: Recognizing and Treating Syphilis in Daniel Turner’s London”. The Secret Malady, edited by Linda E. Merians, University Press of Kentucky, 1996, pp. 68-84.
69, 75

17 June 1972: A secret investigation unit made their second...

National or international item

17 June 1972

A secret investigation unit made their second break-in at the headquarters of the US Democratic Party in the Watergate Building in Washington, DC; the investigators were arrested.
Forbes, Peter, editor. Scanning the Century. Viking, 1999.
224
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/.
“National archives 1973”. The Guardian, 1 Jan. 2004, pp. 4-5.
5
“Watergate’s Deep Throat revealed”. BBC News, 1 June 2005.

713: St Cuthburga founded the double monastery...

Building and people item

713

St Cuthburga founded the double monastery of Wimborne in Dorset.
Leibell, Sister Helen Dominica. Anglo-Saxon Education of Women: From Hilda to Hildegarde. B. Franklin, 1971.
64
Page, William, and Ralph B. Pugh, editors. The Victoria History of the County of Dorset. A. Constable; Oxford University Press, 1908–1968, 3 vols.
107-12
Knowles, David, and Richard Neville Hadcock. Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales. Longmans and Green, 1953.
345
Double monasteries were not uncommon: they included one institution for women and one for men.

March 1827: Alfred and Charles Tennyson published Poems,...

Writer or writing item

March 1827

Alfred and Charles Tennyson published Poems, by Two Brothers.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
Wise, Thomas J. A Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1967, 2 Vols.
4

1913-1914: The Irish Parliamentary (pro-Home-Rule) Party...

National or international item

1913-1914

The Irish Parliamentary (pro-Home-Rule) Party took an anti-suffrage position; while its members of parliament defeated suffrage amendments to the Home Rule Bill, the Irish Women's Franchise League held protest demonstrations during Home Rule rallies.
McKillen, Beth. “Irish Feminism and Nationalist Separatism, 1914-23”. Éire-Ireland, Vol.
17
, No. 3, 4, 1982, pp. 52 - 67, 72.
54

22 August 1795: The new French constitution created a legislature...

National or international item

22 August 1795

The new French constitution created a legislature with two chambers; a five-man Directory held executive power.
Kafker, Frank A., and James M. Laux, editors. The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations. 4th ed., R. E. Krieger, 1989.
xv
Popkin, Jeremy D. “Race, Slavery, and the French and Haitian Revolutions”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
37
, No. 1, 2003, pp. 113-22.
118

October 1999: The worst rail disaster in Britain for many...

National or international item

October 1999

The worst rail disaster in Britain for many years happened at Ladbroke Grove, just outside Paddington Station in London.
Network Rail. http://www.railtrack.co.uk/.
Harper, Keith. “Rail users face winter of disruption”. Guardian Weekly, 6–12 Sept. 2001, p. 9.
9

1768: The second of the two leading subscribers'...

Writer or writing item

1768

The second of the two leading subscribers' or metropolitan libraries opened in Leeds.
Raven, James. Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Responses to Commerce in England, 1750-1800. Clarendon, 1992.
128-9
Poulson, Christine. “Hidden treasures”. The Author, Vol.
cxvii
, No. 4, 1 Dec. 2006–28 Feb. 2007, pp. 145-6.
146

March 1877: The first issue of the Nineteenth Century...

Writer or writing item

March 1877

The first issue of the Nineteenth Century was published by James Thomas Knowles , founder of the Metaphysical Society .
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
2: 621-4, 627

1822: A Jesuit periodical began publication in...

National or international item

1822

A Jesuit periodical began publication in English, bearing the title Annals of the Association for the Propagation of the Faith.
Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. 2nd ed., Penguin, 1990.
337

1628: Publication began of the legal treatise known...

Building and people item

1628

Publication began of the legal treatise known to later generations as Coke upon Littleton: The first part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England, or a Commentarie upon Littleton by jurist Sir Edward Coke

1904: The first national Jewish women's organization,...

National or international item

1904

The first national Jewish women's organization, Jüdisches Frauenbund (JFB), was founded in Germany.
Lerner, Paul. “Anna O. and Bertha P”. Times Literary Supplement, 22 Mar. 2002, p. 6.
6

1898: Frank Karslake founded the Guild of Women...

National or international item

1898

Frank Karslake founded the Guild of Women Binders , which operated as a loosely-knit federation of women bookbinders from various craft groups. It ran until 1904.
Gertz, Stephen J. “The Guild of Women Binders: Bound to be Great”. Booktryst, A Nest for Book Lovers, 25 Oct. 2011.

F. Mabel Robinson

FMR published six novels during the 1880s and 1890s that are daring both in subject-matter and handling, broaching such topics as women's status, seduction, and illegitimacy. She also produced a political history of Ireland and...

1946: US anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1887-1948,...

Writer or writing item

1946

US anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1887-1948, mentor and close associate of Margaret Mead ) published her best-known work, The Crysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture.
Maksel, Rebecca. “Love among anthropologists”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
xxi
, No. 4, Jan. 2004, pp. 15-16.
15-16

8 March 1763: William Thomas's diary notes that an old...

Building and people item

8 March 1763

William Thomas 's diary notes that an old woman buried this day was universally feared in the neighbourhood (south-east Glamorgan) as a witch.
Howell, David W. “Review of R. T. W. Denning, ed., The Diary of William Thomas, 1762-1795, 1995”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
24
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2001, pp. 100-1.
101

1913: Jessie Lawson published Lays and Lyrics,...

Women writers item

1913

Jessie Lawson published Lays and Lyrics, a poetry collection.
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.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

October 1667: John Milton published his epic poem Paradise...

Writer or writing item

October 1667

John Milton published his epic poem Paradise Lost, which he had begun dictating before the Restoration and entered in the Stationers' Register in August.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
20 August 2009