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.

20 July 1969: The first human being set foot on the surface...

National or international item

20 July 1969

The first human being set foot on the surface of the moon: it was Neil Armstrong of the USA's Apollo space mission.
Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. 3rd revised, Simon and Schuster, 1991.
“Eileen Marie Collins”. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration): NASA History Division: Biographies: Astronauts.

23 March 1861: American George F. Train introduced the horse-drawn...

Building and people item

23 March 1861

American George F. Train introduced the horse-drawn tramcar into England, establishing a trial line from Marble Arch to Porchester Terrace.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
107
Day, John R. The Story of the London Bus: London and Its Buses from the Horse Bus to the Present Day. London Transport Executive, 1973.
29
Among historians, John R. Day gives the dates followed here; Leonard Bruno gives...

Isabella Kelly

IK , who published during the very late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, was a poet and a leading Minerva Press novelist in gothic and other modes.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
She also wrote a couple of pedagogic...

John Keats

John Keats Painting of John Keats by William Hilton after Joseph Severn. Keats is seated with an open book in front of him, his chin on his hand, gazing into the distance. National Portrait Gallery.

March 1664: George Etherege's first play, The Comical...

Writer or writing item

March 1664

George Etherege 's first play, The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub, opened on stage.
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.

Sophia Jex-Blake

In a society that valued modesty, where women refrained from seeking treatment from male doctors for some medical problems, SJB saw a need for women doctors. Through extensive conflict, she became the third woman to...
Sophia Jex-Blake Black and white, head-and-shoulders photo of Sophia Jex-Blake aged twenty-five, a dozen years before she won her struggle for medical qualifications. Backed by dark drapery, she wears a simple, dark, loose-fitting dress with a white collar; her dark hair is pulled back.

December 2002: A postcard on which J. K. Rowling had written...

Women writers item

December 2002

A postcard on which J. K. Rowling had written out 93 words from her still unpublished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, contained in a sealed envelope, was auctioned to raise money...

1756: Theophilus Cibber, brother of Charlotte Charke,...

Building and people item

1756

Theophilus Cibber , brother of Charlotte Charke , published Dissertations on Theatrical Subjects (also known as Two Dissertations on the Theatres), a plea against the licensed-theatre monopoly.
Baruth, Philip E. “Who Is Charlotte Charke?”. Introducing Charlotte Charke: Actress, Author, Enigma, edited by Philip E. Baruth, University of Illinois Press, 1998, pp. 9-62.
29

1451: After a petition by James II of Scotland,...

Building and people item

1451

After a petition by James II of Scotland , initiated by William Turnbull , the University of Glasgow was founded under a Bull of Pope Nicholas V .
The World of Learning. 47th ed., Allen and Unwin, 1997.
1524
Rashdall, Hastings. Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. Editors Powicke, Sir Frederick Maurice and Alfred Brotherston Emden, Clarendon, 1987, 3 vols.
II: 311-2.

October 1826: William Bemrose began operating as a bookseller,...

Writer or writing item

October 1826

William Bemrose began operating as a bookseller, printer, and bookbinder at Wirksworth in Derbyshire.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 31

1 April 1936: Eight of the nine women Members of Parliament...

National or international item

1 April 1936

Eight of the nine women Members of Parliament in the House supported Ellen Wilkinson 's amendment seeking to provide equal pay for women in the civil service.
Phillips, Melanie. The Divided House: Women at Westminster. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980.
50

6 February 1826: James Fenimore Cooper published The Last...

Writer or writing item

6 February 1826

James Fenimore Cooper published The Last of the Mohicans, the second of his Leather-Stocking Tales series, about the slow demise of a Native American Tribe.
Peck, H. Daniel, editor. New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
3, 6-7
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
6 February 2008

1876: John Maxwell sold Belgravia to Chatto and...

Writer or writing item

1876

John Maxwell sold Belgravia to Chatto and Windus , ending Mary Elizabeth Braddon 's association with the monthly.
Edwards, Peter David et al. Indexes to Fiction in Belgravia 1867-1899. Victorian Fiction Research Unit, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1989.
passim

By late October 1942: C. S. Lewis published the book version of...

Writer or writing item

By late October 1942

C. S. Lewis published the book version of The Screwtape Letters, an epistolary fiction in which a senior devil, Screwtape, offers advice to his nephew, a junior devil, on tempting and ultimately damning a...

July 1753: James Nelson published an Essay on the Government...

Building and people item

July 1753

James Nelson published an Essay on the Government of Children.
Hunt, Margaret R. The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780. University of California Press, 1996.
205-6, 287n40

28 March 1942: Arthur Bomber Harris began the RAF offensive...

National or international item

28 March 1942

Arthur Bomber Harris began the RAF offensive against German cities: a night raid dropped incendiary bombs on residential areas in Lübeck.
Wright, Patrick. “Dropping Their Eggs”. London Review of Books, 23 Aug. 2001, pp. 11-14.
11

By 20 May 1837: Thomas Carlyle published his acclaimed History...

Writer or writing item

By 20 May 1837

Thomas Carlyle published his acclaimed History of the French Revolution.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
499 (1837): 353
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.

28 October 1726: Cloaking himself, with a great deal of obfuscation,...

Writer or writing item

28 October 1726

Cloaking himself, with a great deal of obfuscation, as Captain Lemuel Gulliver, Swift published Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (better known as Gulliver's Travels).
Hunting, Robert. Jonathan Swift. Twayne, 1967.

7 November 1885: The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway...

National or international item

7 November 1885

The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven in Eagle Pass, British Columbia, completing the transcontinental railway.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
II: 483
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
836

1920: Hillcroft Residential College for Working...

Building and people item

1920

Hillcroft Residential College for Working Women was founded at South Bank, Surbiton, Surrey, to provide, instead of the factory or domestic training usual for working-class provision, an education in academic subjects.
“Hillcroft College”. Women in London: A Directory of London Based Women’s Groups.
2

: The launching of the first Rhine pleasure...

Building and people item

Spring 1816

The launching of the first Rhine pleasure boat powered by steam amazed onlookers and was reported in newspapers. The first cross-Channel steamer began operating the same year.
Lessenich, Rolf. “Literary Views of English Rhine Romanticism 1760-1860”. European Romantic Review, Vol.
10
, No. 4, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1999, pp. 480-18.
490, 499
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
135

After 26 July 1945: In the new Labour government, Dr Edith Summerskill...

National or international item

After 26 July 1945

In the new Labour government, Dr Edith Summerskill was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Food. In that position she ensured the compulsory pasteurisation of milk.
Phillips, Melanie. The Divided House: Women at Westminster. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980.
51

22 July 1598: Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice...

Writer or writing item

22 July 1598

Shakespeare 's comedy The Merchant of Venice was entered in the Stationers' Register by the printer named James Roberts.
Arber, Edward, editor. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London 1554-1660, A. D. Privately Printed, 1875–1894, 5 vols.
3: 39v

10 November 1873: The first of actress and manager Sarah Lane's...

Women writers item

10 November 1873

The first of actress and manager Sarah Lane 's French translations appeared on the stage of the Britannia Theatre .
Kaplan, Fred. Dickens: A Biography. Hodder and Stoughton, 1988.
127, 131

Dora Greenwell

A mid-Victorian writer of great versatility, DG published four books of religious discourse, nine collections of poetry, two volumes of essays, and two biographies. She occasionally contributed to periodicals, both her own prose as well...