
John Harward quoted accounts of “three skore English captives lyeing in chaynes in the hold of ye man of warr, wch had been taken in ye channell out of shipps of Bristoll” in 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was formally dissolved, with the abdication of the emperor Francis II in 1889 the Savoy, the first London hotel to be lit by electricity and with electric lifts, opened in 1890 the electric chair was used for the first time, to execute the murderer William Kemmler in New York. In 1625 the mayor of Poole wrote to the Privy Council about Barbary pirates attacking English vessels, with crews being taken into slavery in north Africa. A report on his death, on April 11, 1890, noted that he “did not complain of anything”. In 1886 a letter in The Times requesting charitable donations to support Merrick funded his stay at London Hospital.

The first message was sent by telegraph cable on Augin 1862 Joseph Carey Merrick, exhibited as the “Elephant Man”, was born. Among more than 70 discoveries was the flowering vine Bougainvillea in 1858 the first transatlantic cable was completed, between Newfoundland and Co Kerry, Ireland. Disguised as a man, she was the lover and assistant of the botanist on Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition, sailing from France in 1766. She also published the erotic novel A Secret History of Pandora’s Box (1742) in 1807 Jeanne Baret, recognised as the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, died in France, aged 67.


In 1761 Mary Cooper, whose Tommy Thumb’s Song Book (1744) is the earliest-known printed collection of English nursery rhymes, died.
