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Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist in periodical form.
Oliver Twist is the second novel Dickens ever wrote, and it was published in installments between 1837 and 1839. Many novels at the time were published serially, meaning that each chapter was issued separately, once a month, over the space of a year or two. -
William Wordsworth becomes poet laureate.
In 1813, Wordsworth moved from Grasmere to nearby Ambelside. He continued to write poetry, but it was never as great as his early works. After 1835, he wrote little more. In 1842, he was given a government pension and the following year became poet laureate. Wordsworth died on 23 April 1850 and was buried in Grasmere churchyard. His great autobiographical poem, 'The Prelude', which he had worked on since 1798, was published after his death -
Potato famine begins in Ireland; close to one million people die of starvation or famine-related disease; massive emigration begins.
While the potato had seemed like the answer to a growing population’s prayers when it first arrived in Ireland, by the early 1800′s warnings began to grow about over reliance on a single source of food. A significant proportion of the Irish population ate little other than potatoes, lived in close to total poverty and were rarely far from hunger -
Alfred, Lord Tennyson becomes a poet laureate.
Tennyson escaped home in 1827 to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In that same year, he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers. Although the poems in the book were mostly juvenilia, they attracted the attention of the "Apostles," an undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. -
Japan opens trade to the West
As Japan remained largely closed to Western trade until Commodore Matthew Perry forced ports to open in 1854, the woodblocks show how Japanese people’s conception of sickness, health, and medicine changed through early contact with Westerners. -
The Civil War begins
As early as 1858, the ongoing conflict between North and South over the issue of slavery had led Southern leadership to discuss a unified separation from the United States. By 1860, the majority of the slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans, the anti-slavery party, won the presidency -
In France, Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables
Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.[1] -
Britain ends 80 year practice of deporting convicts to Australia.
The British government deemed transportation, as the practice was known, just punishment for a mixed bag of crimes from marrying secretly to burning clothes. -
Thomas Edison invents the incandescent lamp.
Edison's first job (1859) was operating a newstand on the railroad that ran from Port Huron to Detroit. To make the trips more interesting, Edison installed a printing press and chemistry lab in a boxcar. -
L. Frank Baum publishes The Wizard of Oz.
The story chronicles the adventures of a young girl named Dorothy Gale in the Land of Oz, after being swept away from her Kansas farm home in a cyclone. The novel is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. -
Queen Victoria dies
Her 63-year reign, the longest in British history, saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.
