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.

18 June 1922-19 July 1924: The Kurds, seeking autonomy, rose in rebellion...

National or international item

18 June 1922-19 July 1924

The Kurds, seeking autonomy, rose in rebellion against the British Mandate over Iraq, their homeland.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 850-1
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
1095
Buchan, James. “Miss Bell’s fateful lines in the sand”. Guardian Weekly, Vol.
168
, No. 13, 20–26 Mar. 2003, p. 20.
20

1964: Dorothea Kerslake learned the vacuum aspiration...

Building and people item

1964

Dorothea Kerslake learned the vacuum aspiration method of abortion from a Polish gynaecologist at the London Conference of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation .
Hindell, Keith, and Madeleine Simms. Abortion Law Reformed. Peter Owen, 1971.
45-6
Hordern, Anthony. Legal Abortion: The English Experience. Pergamon, 1971.
93

15 June 1996: A bomb planted by the IRA destroyed a shopping...

National or international item

15 June 1996

A bomb planted by the IRA destroyed a shopping centre in the heart of Manchester, injuring about two hundred people.
“Huge Explosion Rocks Central Manchester”. BBC News: On this Day, 15 June 1996.

30 April 1776: John Wilkes, in a plan for parliamentary...

Writer or writing item

30 April 1776

John Wilkes , in a plan for parliamentary reform, put forward a proposal for universal male suffrage; Richard Price had recently, in Observations on Civil Liberty, also proposed abolishing the House of Lords .
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
61-2

Diana Athill

During the years of the mid-twentieth century that she worked in publishing, DA herself published translations, short stories, and a novel. She is, however, best-known for her several volumes of memoirs (one of them a...
Diana Athill Photo of Diana Athill, seated, in Toronto to be interviewed by Alice Munro at the Inernational Festival of Authors, 20 October 2009.

March 1909: Harry Gordon Selfridge opened a department...

National or international item

March 1909

Harry Gordon Selfridge opened a department store on Oxford Street, London.
Ferry, John William. A History of the Department Store. Macmillan, 1960.
223-5
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Virago Press, 1985.
152

28 March 1745: Sir Robert Walpole, the first minister of...

National or international item

28 March 1745

Sir Robert Walpole , the first minister of state to be called Prime Minister, died, leaving a large fortune.
Walpole, Horace. The Letters of Horace Walpole. Editor Toynbee, Mrs Paget, Clarendon, 1903–1925, 16 vols.
1: xxxvii

Lady Anne Clifford

LAC 's known writings (clustered in two periods: her youth in the early seventeenth century and her old age after the Restoration) consist of diaries, yearly summaries or chronicles, and an autobiography which relates...
Lady Anne Clifford Portrait of Lady Anne Clifford by William Larkin. She faces forward, sumptuously dressed in a green, heavily embroidered jacket over a white, lace-edged bodice, a small ruff of starched lace, and drop pearl earrings. Her thick hair is brushed back and adorned with a coronet. National Portrait Gallery.

1883: English obstetrics professor W. S. Playfair...

Building and people item

1883

English obstetrics professor W. S. Playfair advocated the rest cure in The Systematic Treatment of Nerve Prostration and Hysteria.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980. Pantheon Books, 1985.
139-141, 273

1406: The influential work of ancient astronomer...

Building and people item

1406

The influential work of ancient astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) was translated into Latin.
Bunch, Bryan, and Alexander Hellemans. The Timetables of Technology. Simon and Schuster, 1993.
118

1921: A local bank named Fox, Fowler and Co., based...

National or international item

1921

A local bank named Fox, Fowler and Co. , based in Somerset, issued the last private (that is, non-Bank of England ) bank notes to be legal tender in Britain.
Boggan, Steven. “Paper Chase”. The Guardian, 24 June 2006, pp. Weekend 21 - 6.
Weekend 21

1606: The Court of the Star Chamber heard a case...

Building and people item

1606

The Court of the Star Chamber heard a case in which Anne Gunter was accused of witchcraft, while other parties believed the accusation was wrongful.
Wootton, David. “Brutish Babies”. London Review of Books, 11 Nov. 1999, pp. 34-35.
35

11 May 1812: Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot...

National or international item

11 May 1812

Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons in London by a Liverpool merchant, John Bellingham , who had been ruined in the course of trade with Russia...

Probably 23 April 1689: Mr and Mrs Priest's girls' school in Chelsea...

Building and people item

Probably 23 April 1689

Mr and Mrs Priest's girls' school in Chelsea put on the first (private) performance of Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell .
Campbell, Margaret. Henry Purcell, Glory of His Age. Oxford University Press, 1995.
130, 137, 146
Wharton, Philip, Duke of. The Poetical Works of Philip, late Duke of Wharton. Edmund Curll, 1731.
311
23 April was William and Mary 's Coronation...

4 July 1776: The third US Congress (Second Continental...

National or international item

4 July 1776

The third US Congress (Second Continental Congress), meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
560
Williams, Neville. Chronology of the Modern World: 1763 to the Present Time. David McKay, 1967.
28

1806: Joseph Dufour of Paris, manufacturer of scenic...

Building and people item

1806

Joseph Dufour of Paris, manufacturer of scenic panoramic wallpapers, aroused immense public interest with a set of wallpaper depicting The Voyages of Captain Cook.
Printing panoramic wallpaper was a complex process. Each colour...

1724: William Law answered Bernard Mandeville in...

Writer or writing item

1724

William Law answered Bernard Mandeville in Remarks upon a Late Book, Entituled, The Fable of the Bees, arguing that moral or immoral behaviour is chosen rather than socially conditioned.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

27 October 2009: In Washington, DC, the National Museum of...

Women writers item

27 October 2009

In Washington, DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Washington Shakespeare Company together launched a Sort-of-Jane-Austen Play Reading Festival presenting women playwrights.
“Sort-of-Jane Austen Play Reading Festival”. Washington Shakespeare Company.

1986: British universities underwent their first...

Building and people item

1986

British universities underwent their first Research Assessment Exercise, a process devised by Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer , then Chairman of the University Grants Committee .
Collini, Stefan. “HiEdBiz”. London Review of Books, 6 Nov. 2003, pp. 3-9.
5, 6

19 January 1850: A series of lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson...

Writer or writing item

19 January 1850

A series of lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson was published under the title Representative Men.
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.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
1160 (19 January 1850): 68-9

By 1838: Stagecoaches were doing more business bringing...

Building and people item

By 1838

Stagecoaches were doing more business bringing passengers to and from railway stations than actually transporting passengers over long distances.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
90

23 March 1899: The first paper presented to the Institution...

Building and people item

23 March 1899

The first paper presented to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) by a woman was read by Hertha Ayrton , who was later admitted as the Institution's first female member.
Jones, Claire. “Women’s History Month: Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923): scientist yet ’in every way a woman’”. Women’s History Network Blog, 23 Mar. 2010.

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

411: St Augustine of Hippo established the orthodox...

Building and people item

411

St Augustine of Hippo established the orthodox Christian doctrine of original sin (the inescapable rottenness of all human beings from the instant of birth) in his work De Peccatum Meritis et Remissione.
Wood, James. “Watering the Dust”. London Review of Books, 30 Sept. 1999, pp. 42-4.
42-4

December 1872: Social reformer Annette Akroyd arrived in...

Building and people item

December 1872

Social reformer Annette Akroyd arrived in Calcutta; she intended to set up schools to instill British ideals of dress and domesticity in Bengali girls.
Ramusack, Barbara N. “Cultural Missionaries, Maternal Imperialists, Feminist Allies: British Women Activists in India, 1865-1945”. Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel, Indiana University Press, 1992, pp. 119-36.
123-4