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3 September 1981: The Convention on the Elimination of All...

National or international item

3 September 1981

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1979, came into force.
“Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

By 31 August 1878: The future Margaret Hungerford published...

Women writers item

By 31 August 1878

The future Margaret Hungerford published Molly Bawn (probably then and later her best-known novel), writing as Margaret Argles in the year that her first husband, Edward Argles , died.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2653 (1878): 271
Bainton, George, editor. The Art of Authorship. J. Clarke, 1890.
18
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.

12 July 1808: A British expeditionary force under Sir Arthur...

National or international item

12 July 1808

A British expeditionary force under Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) sailed to relieve Corunna in Spain.
Page, F. C. G. Following the Drum: Women in Wellington’s Wars. Deutsch, 1986.
6

15 August 1839: A Universal Suffrage Central Committee for...

National or international item

15 August 1839

A Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland was elected.
Royle, Edward. Chartism. Longman, 1980.
127

Medora Gordon Byron

Miss Byron, or Medora Gordon Byron, or Julia Maria Byron, whose identity is still a mystery, published either five or eight early-nineteenth-century novels with the Minerva Press, depending on whether or not they...
Medora Gordon Byron Title-page of vol.1 (of 2) of "Celia in Search of a Husband", 1809, by "A Modern Antique" (generally identified with "Medora Gordon Byron"): a response to Hannah More's "Coelebs in Search of a Wife".

1835: The Independent Order of the Rechabites,...

Building and people item

1835

The Independent Order of the Rechabites , a teetotal friendly society, was founded; the order was named for abstainers in the Bible.
Shiman, Lilian Lewis. Crusade against Drink in Victorian England. Macmillan, 1988.
175

8 July 1839: The Bull Ring Riots took place in Birmin...

National or international item

8 July 1839

The Bull Ring Riots took place in Birmingham.
Thompson, Dorothy, 1923 - 2011, editor. The Early Chartists. Macmillan, 1971.
40

23 April 1014: At the battle of Clontarf, the Gaelic Irish...

National or international item

23 April 1014

At the battle of Clontarf, the Gaelic Irish leader Brian Boru decisively defeated the Danes, who had been trying to subdue Ireland for two centuries.
Butler, Sarah. “Introduction”. Irish Tales, edited by Ian Campbell Ross et al., Four Courts Press, 2010, pp. 9-31.
9

1974: The Times Literary Supplement (under the...

Writer or writing item

1974

The Times Literary Supplement (under the editorship of John Gross ) abandoned its policy of anonymity for its contributors.
Wood, James. “Phut-Phut”. London Review of Books, 27 June 2002, pp. 11-12.
11

1856: Richard Owen, a rival of Darwin and Huxley,...

Building and people item

1856

Richard Owen , a rival of Darwin and Huxley , was appointed superintendent of the natural history departments of the British Museum .
Gascoigne, Robert Mortimer. A Chronology of the History of Science, 1450-1900. Garland, 1987.
410
Knight, David. The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century. Basil Blackwell, 1986.
100

9 September 1916: A general order based on the recommendations...

Building and people item

9 September 1916

A general order based on the recommendations of the Health of Munitions Workers Committee forbade children to work on Sundays and restricted the work week to 60 hours for girls under sixteen.
Andrews, Irene Osgood. Economic Effects of the War Upon Women and Children in Great Britain. Oxford University Press, 1918.
156

1906: Motorized roller skates were invented by...

Building and people item

1906

Motorized roller skates were invented by M. Constantini of Paris.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
164

Late 1951: Florence Horsbrugh was appointed Minister...

National or international item

Late 1951

Florence Horsbrugh was appointed Minister of Education without a seat in cabinet by Winston Churchill ; it was the first time an Education Minister . . . [had been] excluded from the Cabinet in twenty...

: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia became the...

National or international item

1678-06-25

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to be awarded an academic degree (although Dorotea Bocchi had been appointed to an academic chair almost three hundred years before this).
Stevenson, Angus, and Christine A. Lindberg, editors. “Cornaro Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia”. New Oxford American Dictionary, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2015.
Maschietto, Francesco Ludovico. Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684). Translator Vairo, Jan, Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2007.
74

7 June 1786: During the absence abroad of William Beckford,...

Writer or writing item

7 June 1786

During the absence abroad of William Beckford , his tutor Samuel Henley anonymously published his own English translation of Vathek, an Oriental gothic tale which Beckford had originally written in French.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
James, Jamie. “The Caliph of Fonthill”. The American Scholar, Vol.
72
, No. 1, 1 Dec. 2003–28 Feb. 2004, pp. 67-79.
70

1825: Justus von Liebig established the first university...

National or international item

1825

Justus von Liebig established the first university research laboratory for chemistry, at Giessen in Germany.
Hobsbawm, Eric John. The Age of Revolution 1789-1848. Vintage, 1996.
279

August 1941: Shortages in all manner of goods led to longer...

Building and people item

August 1941

Shortages in all manner of goods led to longer queues and a bustling black market in uncontrolled foods.
Minns, Raynes. Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939-45. Virago, 1980.
chronology

19 February 2007: Sarah Thomas, an American, made history when...

Building and people item

19 February 2007

Sarah Thomas , an American, made history when she became the first woman and the first non-British person appointed Bodley's Librarian: head librarian at Oxford University 's Bodleian Library (opened on 8 November 1602).
Garner, Richard. “A double-first at the Bodleian library as US woman takes over”. The Independent, 21 Feb. 2007.
“First woman to become Bodley’s Librarian”. University of Oxford: News, 16 Nov. 2006.

10 May 1933: Following a speech from Joseph Goebbels,...

Building and people item

10 May 1933

Following a speech from Joseph Goebbels , over 40,000 people participated in burning books to cleanse German literature and root out Jewish intellectualism.
Bernard, Bruce, editor. Century. Phaidon, 2002.
313, 347
“Book Burning”. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings”. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

16 January 1926: Father Ronald Knox created widespread alarm...

Building and people item

16 January 1926

Father Ronald Knox created widespread alarm with his broadcast of a fictitious report about a mob of unemployed workers who roasted a philanthropist alive.
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
367

20 April 1769: Justice Joseph Yates recorded his view in...

Writer or writing item

20 April 1769

Justice Joseph Yates recorded his view in debate over intellectual property that works once published are irrevocably given to the public; they become common.
London, April. Women and Property in the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
50 and n4

28 December 1836: The province of South Australia was foun...

National or international item

28 December 1836

The province of South Australia was founded.
Clark, Charles Manning Hope. A History of Australia. Melbourne University Press, 1981.
III: 55

April 1915: In the first use of gas as a weapon of war,...

National or international item

April 1915

In the first use of gas as a weapon of war, Germans killed 5,000 Franco-Algerian soldiers at Ypres in Belgium by means of 168 tonnes of chlorine.
Pennington, Hugh. “Woolsorters’ Disease”. London Review of Books, 29 Nov. 2001, pp. 26-7.
27
This was the second battle of Ypres...

7 September 1513: The English (under the leadership of Catherine...

National or international item

7 September 1513

The English (under the leadership of Catherine of Aragon , queen regent while her husband was abroad) defeated the Scots at the battle of Flodden Field in Northumberland, just across the border from Coldstream, Scotland.
Guy, John. “The Tudor Age (1485-1603)”. Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, edited by Kenneth O. Morgan, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 223-85.
254

1776: Josiah Tucker and John Cartwright, in the...

Building and people item

1776

Josiah Tucker and John Cartwright , in the course of a printed exchange on the topic of taxation and representation, raised the issue of representation of women.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Revised, Penguin, 1992.
342-3