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1864: The word pornography appeared in Webster's...

Building and people item

1864

The word pornography appeared in Webster's Dictionary for the first time.
Norton, J. E. “Some Uncollected Authors, XXVII: Mary Astell, 1666-1731”. The Book Collector, Vol.
10
, 1961, pp. 58-65.
19-23
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Compact Edition, Oxford University Press, 1982.

Dorothy Boulger

DB 's writings spanned many forms and genres during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. She published a large number of novels (which include the semi-autobiographical), short stories, ghost stories, and adapted fairy...
Dorothy Boulger Title page from the US edition of Dorothy Boulger's best-remembered novel, "Pretty Miss Bellew", 1875, published under the pseudonym "Theo. Gift". It bears the owl logo of the publisher Henry Holt and Company, New York (now subsumed in Macmillan).

April 1776: Elizabeth Chudleigh was tried for bigamy...

Building and people item

April 1776

Elizabeth Chudleigh was tried for bigamy in her second marriage, to the late Duke of Kingston : she was found guilty but, her first husband being now a peer, she escaped the punishment of branding...

10 December 1971: Dennis Gabor from Great Britain was awarded...

National or international item

10 December 1971

Dennis Gabor from Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing, and developing, the holographic method, which allowed for the retention of a wave-field's phase on a photographic plate.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
The Nobel Foundation. Nobel E-Museum.

Christmas 1819: William Wordsworth presented Lady Mary Lowther...

Women writers item

Christmas 1819

William Wordsworth presented Lady Mary Lowther with a little manuscript volume of poems: those by women were mostly copied from the pages of Poems by Eminent Ladies.
Lavoie, Chantel Michelle. Poems by Eminent Ladies: A Study of an Eighteenth-Century Anthology. University of Toronto, 1999.
288
Wordsworth, William, and Anne Finch. Poems and Extracts Chosen by William Wordsworth for an Album presented to Lady Mary Lowther, Christmas 1819. Editor Littledale, Harold, H. Frowde, 1905.

31 July 1797: The London Corresponding Society's final...

National or international item

31 July 1797

The LondonCorresponding Society 's final public meeting was dispersed as illegal by magistrates.
Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution. Hutchinson, 1979.
412-3

Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton

RBLBL wrote prolifically after her separation from her husband in 1836, penning sixteen novels, as well as a collection of essays and an autobiography. A vein of polemic runs through her work regarding the treatment...
Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton Stipple engraving of the head of Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton, by John Jewell Penstone after Alfred Edward Chalon, 1852. Her face is framed by dark hair and a light gauzy scarf wrapped around her head. Her signature, "Rosina Lytton", appears below. National Portrait Gallery.

1892: Marshall and Snelgrove introduced the combined...

Building and people item

1892

Marshall and Snelgrove introduced the combined bodice, petticoat, drawers to be worn over a corset and under a vest.
Cunnington, C. Willett et al. The History of Underclothes. Revised, Faber and Faber, 1981.
123

30 November 1971: The military government of Libya, after two...

National or international item

30 November 1971

The military government of Libya, after two years in power, nationalized the British Petroleum Company ; Libya and Iraq severed relations with the UK.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
265

17 June 1938: T. H. White published, as a book for children,...

Writer or writing item

17 June 1938

T. H. White published, as a book for children, The Sword in the Stone, about the childhood of King Arthur (known here as the Wart).
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
17 June 2009

June 1866: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution...

National or international item

June 1866

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which gave male Negroes the vote, was drafted so as to deny the vote to women.
James, Joseph B. The Framing of the Fourteenth Amendment. University of Illinois Press, 1965.
130, 203
Faber, Doris. Petticoat Politics: How American Women Won the Right to Vote. Lothrip, Lee and Shepard, 1967.
70-2

Late 1845: In response to the potato blight in Ireland,...

National or international item

Late 1845

In response to the potato blight in Ireland, Sir Robert Peel's government imported £100,000 of American corn to control prices, and encouraged Irish landowners to provide wage labour to tenants.
Adelman, Paul. Great Britain and the Irish Question 1800-1922. Hodder and Stoughton, 1996.
59-60

By 3 March 1470: Sir Thomas Malory, a political prisoner in...

Writer or writing item

By 3 March 1470

Sir Thomas Malory , a political prisoner in London, most probably in the Tower, finished compiling and writing his collection of legendary Arthurian romances, Le Morte d'Arthur.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1378-1417: Rival claimants to the position of Pope weakened...

National or international item

1378-1417

Rival claimants to the position of Pope weakened the authority of the Papacy in what became known as the Great Schism.
Griffiths, Ralph Alan. “The Later Middle Ages (1290-1485)”. Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, edited by Kenneth O. Morgan, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 166-22.
211-12

1962: Critic and biographer Ian Hamilton (not the...

Writer or writing item

1962

Critic and biographer Ian Hamilton (not the man of this name who was once involved with Anna Kavan ) launched The Review: A Bi-Monthly Magazine of Poetry and Criticism; it ran, despite persistent financial...

18 June 1840-7 July 1841: Edward J. Eyre completed a gruelling expedition...

National or international item

18 June 1840-7 July 1841

Edward J. Eyre completed a gruelling expedition overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound.
Clark, Charles Manning Hope. A History of Australia. Melbourne University Press, 1981.
III: 77
Clark, Charles Manning Hope. A Short History of Australia. Revised Illustrated, Penguin, 1986.
73-4
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

18 March 1834: George and James Loveless, James Brine, Thomas...

National or international item

18 March 1834

George and James Loveless , James Brine , Thomas and John Standfield , and James Hammett , all farm labourers from the small Dorset village of Tolpuddle, were sentenced to seven years transportation to...

1868: Colonel Alexander Strange launched a campaign...

National or international item

1868

Colonel Alexander Strange launched a campaign for increased State support of physical science research before the British Association for the Advancement of Science .
Morrell, J. B. “The Patronage of Mid-Victorian Science in the University of Edinburgh”. The Patronage of Science in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Gerard L’Estrange Turner, Noordhoff International, 1976, pp. 53-93.
57

1897: Irish writer Charlotte O'Conor Eccles, as...

Women writers item

1897

Irish writer Charlotte O'Conor Eccles , as Hal Godfrey, published The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore: a farcical novel.
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.

1634: Peter Chamberlen (perhaps the third of that...

Building and people item

1634

Peter Chamberlen (perhaps the third of that name) attempted to form a corporation of midwives with himself as governor; he did not succeed.
Dingwall, Robert et al. An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing. Routledge, 1988.
20-1
Dolan, Josephine A. History of Nursing. 12th ed., Saunders, 1968.
124
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984.
449

1826: Twenty years after the Fourdrinier brothers...

Building and people item

1826

Twenty years after the Fourdrinier brothers took a patent for their papermaking machine, John Marshall invented the dandy-roll: a device used in papermaking machines whose machine-made paper would appear handmade.
Gentry, Helen, and David Greenhood. Chronology of Books and Printing. Rev. ed., Macmillan, 1936.
106
Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. Dover Publications, 1978.
400-1, 541

5 November 1885: W. T. Stead published his defence, which...

Building and people item

5 November 1885

W. T. Stead published his defence, which had been deemed inadmissible in court, of his motives for abductingEliza Armstrong for his Pall Mall Gazette exposé of July.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
111-12, 277

24 July 1923: Turkey agreed to cede territory under the...

National or international item

24 July 1923

Turkey agreed to cede territory under the Treaty of Lausanne; this signalled the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 850
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
1086-7
Mazower, Mark. “Half-Infidels”. London Review of Books, 3 Aug. 2006, pp. 9-10.
9-10

March 1848: Chartist uprisings took place in London,...

National or international item

March 1848

Chartist uprisings took place in London, Glasgow, and Manchester.
Royle, Edward. Chartism. Longman, 1980.
40-3

Vera Brittain

From her university days before the First World War, VB was determined to be a writer. Her career as a novelist never fulfilled her own expectations; it was not until the publication of Testament of...
Vera Brittain Black and white, head-and-shoulders photo of Vera Brittain, looking straight at the camera, wearing a white shirt and a white scarf wrapped around her head.