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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.

28 May 1961: Amnesty, later Amnesty International, was...

Building and people item

28 May 1961

Amnesty , later Amnesty International, was founded when a British lawyer, Peter Benenson , published an article in the Observer entitled The Forgotten Prisoners.
Waal, Alex de. “The Moral Solipsism of Global Ethics Inc”. London Review of Books, 23 Aug. 2001, pp. 15-18.
16
Amnesty Timeline. http://web.amnesty.org/flash/40th/flashmovie.html.

11 October 1819: The Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, owned...

Building and people item

11 October 1819

The Theatre Royal , Bury St Edmunds, owned by its architect, William Wilkins , opened as a state-of-the-art modern theatre.
Bury St Edmunds Theatre Royal. http://www.theatreroyal.org/.
Kuti, Elizabeth. Email to Orlando about conference, 19 April 2010.

1967: Elizabeth Cadell published her popular novel...

Women writers item

1967

Elizabeth Cadell published her popular novel The Stratton Story.
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.

January 1881: The Personal Rights Journal began monthly...

Building and people item

January 1881

The Personal Rights Journal began monthly publication in England.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
9-10

4 December 1999: The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, re-opened...

Building and people item

4 December 1999

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden , re-opened after a three-year reconstruction (begun well before the final performance in the old house in July 1997).
“AbouttheHouse: History”. Royal Opera House.

30 October 1899: The siege of Ladysmith began: General Sir...

National or international item

30 October 1899

The siege of Ladysmith began: General Sir George Stuart White , besieged by Boer forces at this Transvaal town, decided to hold the town and await relief from more British troops under Sir Redvers Buller

15 October 1894: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer...

National or international item

15 October 1894

Captain Alfred Dreyfus , a Jewish officer in the French Army, was arrested on a (false) charge of treason.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
322
Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. 3rd revised, Simon and Schuster, 1991.
448, 450

: The first starvation deaths attributable...

National or international item

Winter 1845-6

The first starvation deaths attributable to the potato blight in Ireland were reported; the Great Famine began in earnest.
Adelman, Paul. Great Britain and the Irish Question 1800-1922. Hodder and Stoughton, 1996.
62
Jack, Ian. “A Country Emptied”. London Review of Books, Vol.
41
, No. 5, 7 Mar. 2019, pp. 19-22.
21

1856: The National Portrait Gallery was founded,...

National or international item

1856

The National Portrait Gallery was founded, largely through the advocacy of Lord Stanhope , who was president of the Society of Arts at the time.
Boase, Thomas Sherrer Ross, editor. English Art, 1800-1870. Clarendon, 1959.
270
Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. Victorian Women Artists. Women’s Press, 1987.
36
National Portrait Gallery. http://www.npg.org.uk/live/index.asp.

1909: A biography of Christina of Sweden by Ida...

Women writers item

1909

A biography of Christina of Sweden by Ida Ashworth Taylor appeared.
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.

1609: Louise Bourgeois, a French midwife with feminist...

Building and people item

1609

Louise Bourgeois , a French midwife with feminist views, published her Observations diverses, in which she takes an authoritative tone and seeks to keep the practice of midwifery in female hands.
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.
under Medical Writing
Robinson, Jane. Pandora’s Daughters: The Secret History of Enterprising Women. Constable, 2002.
17

1800: The London book trade flourished at the turn...

Writer or writing item

1800

The London book trade flourished at the turn of the century: England had about 390 circulating libraries; about 6,500 titles were issued annually, over 150 of them fiction.
Suarez, Michael F. “The Business of Literature: The Book Trade in England from Milton to Blake”. A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake, edited by David Womersley, Blackwell, 2000, pp. 131-47.
133-4
Benedict, Barbara M. “Jane Austen and the Culture of Circulating Libraries: The Construction of Female Literacy”. Revising Women: Eighteenth-Century "Women’s Fiction" and Social Engagement, edited by Paula R. Backscheider, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 147-00.
164

15 November 1889: Walter Pater published Appreciations, with...

Writer or writing item

15 November 1889

Walter Pater published Appreciations, with an Essay on Style.
Clements, Patricia. Baudelaire and the English Tradition. Princeton University Press, 1985.
102
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
57

7 October 1850: Nicholas Wiseman became the first British...

National or international item

7 October 1850

Nicholas Wiseman became the first British Cardinal and the first Westminster Metropolitan (i.e. spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain) since the Reformation, following the restoration of the Catholic hierachy there.
Norman, Edward R. The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century. Clarendon, 1984.
101, 103, 106, 110

1881: Carl Sigmund Franz Credé developed a method...

Building and people item

1881

Carl Sigmund Franz Credé developed a method of preventing gonorrheal blindness in babies by dropping a solution of silver nitrate in their eyes at birth.
Talbott, John H. A Biographical History of Medicine: Excerpts and Essays on the Men and Their Work. Grune and Stratton, 1970.
663-4
Rosebury, Theodor. Microbes and Morals: The Strange Story of Venereal Disease. Viking Press, 1971.
171, 213

1852: The Amazon, a wooden mail ship, caught fire...

Building and people item

1852

The Amazon, a wooden mail ship, caught fire on its maiden voyage, killing 37 of the 229 people aboard.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
100

By 1866: Female pre-millennialist preachers abounded;...

Building and people item

By 1866

Female pre-millennialist preachers abounded; middle-class women spoke urgently to large assemblies about the second coming of Christ.
Owen, Alex. The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth-Century England. Virago, 1989.
16

Henry Green

HG 's unusually spare novels, which experiment with a steadily increasing proportion of dialogue to narrative, appeared during the mid twentieth century. He also published an autobiography.
Henry Green Henry Green's futuristic novel Concluding, Hogarth Press, 1948, in its dark blue cover.

January 1781-December 1782: The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties...

Writer or writing item

January 1781-December 1782

The Lady's Poetical Magazine, or Beauties of British Poetry appeared, published by James Harrison in four half-yearly numbers; it is arguable whether or not it kept the first number's promise of generous selections of work...

14 September 1851: James Fenimore Cooper, US novelist, died...

Writer or writing item

14 September 1851

James Fenimore Cooper , US novelist, died the day before his sixty-second birthday.
“Biographic Information”. The James Fenimore Cooper Society, 14 May 2004.

24 May 1689: The Toleration Act (or Act of Toleration)...

Building and people item

24 May 1689

The Toleration Act (or Act of Toleration) declared that statutes against Protestant Dissenters would no longer be enforced; it did not, however, take them off the books.
Defoe, Daniel. Selected Poetry and Prose of Daniel Defoe. Editor Shugrue, Michael F., Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
326
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
197

About November 1697: A tragedy by Charles Hopkins, Boadicea, Queen...

Building and people item

About November 1697

A tragedy by Charles Hopkins , Boadicea, Queen of Britain, starring Elizabeth Barry , scored an immense success.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

1808: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published Faust:...

Writer or writing item

1808

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published Faust: Part One; it followed his Faust: A Fragment, 1790.
Wood, Michael. “The Man without Predicates”. London Review of Books, 20 July 2000, pp. 11-13.
12

10 December 1967: Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and Sir George...

National or international item

10 December 1967

Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and Sir George Porter from Britain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equilibrium by means of very short...

1804: The Prince of Wales (later George IV) was...

National or international item

1804

The Prince of Wales (later George IV) was given full custody of his daughter Princess Charlotte ; George III (her grandfather) became her guardian.
Ayling, Stanley. George the Third. Collins, 1972.
433