Morals & Fashion;

People

Talent contests

Abortion & Birth Control – see Appendix 1 below. For divorce see Women’s Rights.

Animal Protection – see Appendix 2 below

Beauty contests – see Appendix 3 below

Child Protection – See Appendix 4 below

Clothing and Cosmetics – see Appendix 5 below.

Drugs – see Appendix 6 below

Family relations – see Appendix 7 below

Gambling – see Appendix 8 below

Homosexuality and attitudes towards – see Appendix 9 below

Pornography and intimacy – see Appendix 10 below

Religion – see Appendix 11 below

Temperance & Prohibition (of alcohol) – see Appendix 12 below

Tobacco and Smoking – see Appendix 13 below

1/4/2002, The Netherlands became the first country to legalise euthanasia.

2/10/2000, The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK. It incorporated into English law the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.

1/3/1993. Funeral of two-year-old James Bulger, abducted from Bootle shopping centre on 12/2/1993 and later murdered by two youths on a Liverpool railway line; his body was found by the tracks on 16/2/1993. Two boys aged ten from Walton, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were charged with the murder on 20/2/1993. The case provoked a moral panic about social breakdown in society and ‘loss of values’.

4/2/1987. Death of US pianist Liberace, unofficially of AIDS. The official cause of death was a brain tumour.

8/4/1977, The Dammed played in New York, the first punk band to play in the USA.

5/3/1977. The first Punk Rock LP, Dammed, Dammed, Dammed, was released.

6/1/1977. EMI dismissed the Sex Pistols due to their outrageous behaviour and foul language, with a £40,000 payoff. The resultant publicity boosted sales of the Sex Pistol’s album Anarchy in the UK; sales reached 50,000.

1/12/1976, The Sex Pistols, a punk rock group, were interviewed by Bill Grundy on Thames TV Today.

6/11/1975. The punk rock band Sex Pistols played their first gig at St Martin’s College of Art in London.

6/9/1974. Mary Whitehouse described as ‘completely irresponsible’ a sketch on the BBC children’s programme Jackanory in which actors walked away unharmed after blowing up a car.

4/1/1974. Teachers requested that 16 year old ‘bovver boys’ (“they don’t even speak English, they just grunt”) should be allowed to leave school as soon as exams were over rather than having to stay on till the end of term.

12/10/1973. Students jostled the Queen when she visited Stirling University.

8/2/1972, Fans demonstrated outside the Albert Hall, London, after Frank Zappa and the Mother of Invention concert was cancelled due to obscenities in one of their songs.

2/7/1970. The London Tourist Board spoke out against young tourists roughing it in London, sleeping out around the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park, causing ‘squalor and moral problems’. 250 seal pups were shot in The Wash in the last cull of the open season, before the Conservation of Seals Act finally outlawed the seal killing on 29/8/1970.

1/1/1970. In the UK the age of majority was reduced from 21 to 18.

26/5/1969. John Lennon and Yoko Ono began a ‘bed – in’ at a Montreal hotel in aid of world peace. See 8/12/1980.

15/6/1967. In Britain the Latey Commission reported that the voting age should be lowered to 18.

29/11/1965. Mary Whitehouse began her clean up campaign concerning TV broadcasts, by setting up the National Viewers and Listeners Association to tackle ‘bad taste and irresponsibility’.

5/9/1965, The word ‘hippie’ first appeared in print, in an article in the San Francisco Examiner by reporter Michael Fallon, who was writing a series about the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood. "Five untroubled young 'hippies'," Fallon began, "sprawled on floor mattresses and slouched in an armchair retrieved from a debris box, flipped cigarette ashes at a seatbelt in their Waller Street flat and pondered their next move."

15/1/1963. The BBC ended its ban on mentioning politics, royalty, religion, and sex in comedy shows.

11/1/1963, The world’s first disco, called Whisky a Go Go, opened in Los Angeles.

9/3/1959, A doll named Barbara Millicent Roberts, or Barbie for short, was exhibited at the New York Toy Fair, wearing a black and white swimming costume.

13/2/1959, The first Barbie Doll went on sale, priced at US$3 (£2), in a zebra-stripe swimsuit. She was created by Ruth Handler, whose daughter was called Barbara.

18/10/1958, Two Americans, Shirley Sanders and Robert Kardell, married in a church in Hollywood, the first couple to be matched by computer.

3/9/1956, After riots in several towns at cinemas involving Teddy Boys following the film Rock Around The Clock, the film was banned.

24/9/1942, Linda McCartney, American photographer who married ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and campaigned for animal rights, was born.

14/2/1933, Oxford students declared that ‘they would not fight for King and Country’.

1925, Coco Chanel, fashion designer, appeared with a suntan, challenging previous notions that a lily-white skin was the height of sophistication. This created a demand for suntan oils, and in 1936 L’Oreal began marketing the first mass-market sun lotion, called Ambre Solaire.

1921, John William Gott, Bradford trouser salesman, became the last person jailed in Britain for blasphemy. He was sentenced to 9 months hard labour for calling Jesus a ‘circus clown. He died soon after his release.

13/4/1914, George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion caused a stir with its use of the word ‘bloody’.

1/1/1913, Film censorship began in Britain.

5/11/1912, The British Board of Film Censors was appointed.

13/6/1910, Mary Whitehouse, General Secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, was born.

23/5/1909, US police broke up a lecture given by the anarchist Emma Goldman.

22/4/1909, In Westminster a Bill was introduced to abolish censorship in plays.

See also Education for improvements in Child Education during the 19^th and 20^th Centuries

29/4/1874, In Britain, the Cremation Society was formed.

1851, Census figures in Britain showed that only half the population regularly attended church on a Sunday.

12/10/1845, The social worker and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry died.

1840, In Britain, the Select Committee on the Health of Towns exposed slum conditions in many industrial cities.

16/6/1835, Social reformer Mr William Lovett founded the London Working Men’s Association, to tackle poverty amongst low paid labourers.

1824, In the UK, the Vagrancy Act made it an offence to sleep rough,out of doors. This was modified in 1935. See also price and economics.

18/12/1792, Thomas Paine was tried in absentia for publishing The Rights of Man.

1/11/1781. Austria abolished serfdom, and gave all citizens the right of marriage, free movement, and instruction in any handicraft. This initially applied to Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; to Galicia soon after, and to Hungary in 1785. Landowners had certain rights remaining, such as corvee, but these were reduced by later laws.

19/7/1695, The first dating advertisement appeared, in Britain. A gentleman of about 30 years of age of some wealth sought a woman with an estate of around £3,000 to match with.

1623, Patent laws introduced in England, to protect inventions.

1233, The practice of staining the teeth black (ohaguro) began to be adopted as a sign of beauty in Japan after it was taken up by one of the aristocratic families.

150 BCE, The Romans closed all schools of dancing because they viewed it as effeminate. However dancing was still appreciated as public entertainment, although dancers then had a low social status. In the Bible, Saul’s daughter also look down witrh scorn when King David ‘danced before Jehovah with all his might’ when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem. The early Christian Church similarly looked down on dancing, but again, like the Ro,mans, dancers were used as entertainment yet denied social standing in the Christian Mediaeval world. A similar attitude prevailed in the Islamic world. Dancing rose up the social scale in Europe as the Renaissance got underway.

Appendix 1 – Abortion & Birth Control (for divorce see Women’s Rights)

25/5/2018, Ireland voted to legalise abortion by a large majority of 66.4%. This left Northern Ireland as rather an anomaly, with its strict anti-abortion laws, whilst abortion was now legal in both Ireland and Great Britain. However the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, who support Mrs May, British PM, needs to remain in power, was like all other NI Parties, anti-abortion.

25/4/1990. The UK Parliament reduced the time limit for abortion from 28 to 24 weeks.

3/4/1990, In Belgium, King Baudoin temporarily abdicated to allow the passing of a law legalising abortion, which he refused to sign on principle.

30/4/1987, In Britain, the Court of Appeal ruled that a man could not prevent a woman who was carrying his child from having an abortion.

17/10/1985, In Britain, the House of Lords voted to allow doctors to prescribe contraceptives to girls aged under 16 without parental consent, despite a campaign against this by Catholic mother Mrs Victoria Gillick.

26/7/1983, Mrs Victoria Gillick lost her case in the High Court to prevent doctors prescribing contraceptives to girls under 16 without parental consent.

17/5/1981, In a referendum, Italy voted to legalise abortion.

20/6/1977, The US Supreme Court ruled that States were not required to fund elective abortions on Medicaid.

22/1/1973, The US Supreme Court ruled, in Roe vs Wade; a ruling that resulted in the liberalisation of abortion laws, so women had the freedom to choose a private abortion. Abortion was subsequently legalised in France (1975) and Italy (1977). The actual case was between Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney, and Norma McCorvey; McCorvey’s name was disguised as Jane Roe.

1/4/1972. Hounslow Borough Council began to offer free contraception on the rates. There was no restriction on the type of contraception nor on the marital status of the applicants; they only had to be aged 16 or over and resident in Hounslow.

27/4/1968. Abortion was legalised in Britain, as the 1967 Abortion Act became Law. The Liberal MP David Steel had introduced the Abortion Act to Parliament.

27/10/1967, The UK’s Abortion Act received Royal Assent.

25/10/1967. UK Parliament passed the Abortion Act, decriminalising abortion.

14/7/1967. Parliament in the UK voted to legalise abortion. This was after a record 64 hour debate. The 1967 Abortion Act allowed for the legal termination of pregnancy if two registered doctors believed that continuation of the pregnancy could damage the physical or mental health of the woman, or of members of her family, or where there was substantial risk of the baby being born with physical or mental abnormalities.

25/4/1967, Colorado became the first US State to liberalise its abortion laws. Abortion was now permissible in the case of rape or incest, where the woman’s physical or mental health was in danger, or was likely to result in a child with severe mental or physical issues. The abortion had to be performed in a licenced hospital with the approval of three physicians.

19/2/1966. Lord Silkin’s Bill to legalise abortion ran into difficulties in the House of Lords.

4/12/1961. The birth control pill became available on the National Health Service.

30/1/1961. The contraceptive pill went on sale in Britain. It was called Conovid, see 18/10/1960.

18/10/1960, The first approved contraceptive pill, called Enovid 10, went on sale in the USA; it was only available to married couples. Catholics objected. See 30/1/1961.

18/8/1960. The birth control pill, the world’s first oral contraceptive, was launched in America.

1955, Legalised abortion was restored in the USSR, although both abortion and birth control were discouraged.

2/10/1958, Marie Stopes, promoter of birth control, died (born 1880).

1949, Japan legalised abortion, over concerns about continued population growth; the population of Japan had risen from 64 million in 1930 to almost 80 million in 1949.

1936, The 1920 legalisation of abortion in the USSR was reversed; abortion was now only permissible if the woman’s life was in danger or the child was likely to have some certain specified inherited disease.

28/1/1935. Iceland became the first country to legalise abortion, on medical grounds, under Law no.38, allowing abortion at up to 28 weeks if there was a threat to the mental or physical health of the mother. Most subsequent abortion laws followed this pattern. However in Ireland the import or sale of contraceptives became illegal.

1930, Italy, under Mussolini, made abortion ‘a crime against the integrity and health of the race’; however illegal abortions in Italy continued at more than 500,000 a year.

14/8/1930, The Church of England grudgingly accepted birth control.

15/10/1927. Britain’s Public Morals Committee attacked the use of contraceptives for ‘causing poor hereditary

stock’.

17/3/1921. First birth control clinic opened in Holloway, London, by Marie Stopes.

1920, Abortion was made illegal in France, because of population losses suffered in World War One. However the law was widely flouted and by 1970 there were 500,000 illegal abortions a year in France, with botched operations causing some 500 deaths per year.

16/10/1916, Margaret Sanger, who coined the term ‘birth control’, opened the first family planning clinic in the US. It faced considerable opposition,

1920, Abortion was legalised in the USSR.

1873, In the US, the Comstock Act authorised the postal services to restrict dissemination of information about contraception,even from doctors.

1872, Germany enacted a new law punishing abortion by up to 5 years in prison.

1/10/1847, Annie Besant, social reformer and theosophist, was born. With radical atheist Charles Bradlaugh, she promoted birth control, for which she was prosecuted.

28/4/1780, The first advertisement for an abortion clinic appeared on the back page of London’s Morning Post. The address was 23, Fleet Street, London

Appendix 2 – Animal Protection

3/4/1993, Animal Rights activists disrupted the Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool.

18/10/1927. Dancing bears were banned from the streets of Berlin.

20/9/1917. The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened in Liverpool.

1876, In the UK the Crtuelty to Animals Act was passed, to curb the use of live animals in scientific experiments.

1866, The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Aniamls (ASPCA) was founded by New York shipbuolder’s son Henry Bergh, 43, who served as the first president of the ASPCA. It’s main objective was preventing the abuse of horses.

15/6/1824. The RSPCA was founded in London.

1822, The UK Government passed a Bill outlawing cruelty to cattle.

Appendix 3 – Beauty contests

13/6/1988, The first beauty contest was held in the USSR.

17/11/1970. The Sun published its first ‘page three girl’, Stephanie Rahn.

7/9/1968, Protests by the New York Radical Women (NYRW) Group disrupted the Miss World competition in New York.

11/9/1954, The ‘Miss America’ beauty contest, held in Atlanta City, New Jersey, was televised across the USA.

19/4/1951. Eric Morley, publicity officer for Mecca, devised the first Miss World beauty contest as part of the Festival of Britain. The contest was held at the Lyceum ballroom off The Strand, London. The Swedish entrant, Miss Kiki Haakonson, won.

10/9/1938. Death of the dog show founder Charles Cruft.

7/9/1921. The first Miss America beauty contest was held in Atlantic City. The winner was 15 year old, blonde, Margaret Goorman, of Washington DC.

14/8/1908, The first international beauty contest was held at the Pier Hippodrome, Folkestone, Kent. Contestants included six English, three French, one Irish, and one Austrian.

23/12/1905, The final of the earliest known beauty contest in Britain was held at Newcastle on Tyne.

19/9/1888. The world’s first beauty contest took place at Spa, Belgium. The winner was 18-year-old Bertha Soucaret from Guadeloupe, who won a 5,000 Franc prize.

10/3/1886, The first Cruft’s dog show in London took place; the first ever Cruft’s was in 1859 in Newcastle on Tyne.

13/7/1871, The first cat show took place. It was held at Crystal Palace, London, organised by Harrison Weir.

14/10/1854, The first baby show was held, at Springfield, Ohio. There were127 exhibits.

Appendix 4 – Child Protection. See Crime and Punishment for other legal developments

1991, In Britain the Child Support Agency (CSA) was set up. The principle was to trace errant absent fathers not paying maintenance for their children. However single mothers acting ‘unreasonably’ in failing to divulge details of the father faced Benefits sanctions, leading to accusations that the CSA was in fact to save the Treausry money, rather than assist single mothers.

1/8/1963, In the UK, the minimum age for prison was raised to 17 by the Criminal Justice Act.

1937, The Factory Act prohibited persons under 16 from working more than 44 hours a week. Persons aged 16 – 18, and women, were limited to 48 hours a week.

1935, In the USSR, Joseph Stalin decreed that children over 12 were subject to the same draconian laws as adults – for example, 5 years in a labour camp for stealing cucumbers, or 8 years for stealing corn or potatoes.

1933, In the UK, the Children and Young Offenders Act raised the age band for being tried at a juvenile court from 7 - 16 upwards to age range 8 – 17. See 1908.

1/9/1916, In the US the Keating-Owen Act was signed, outlawing work in mines and on night shifts by children under 16. Daytime shifts formunder-16s were limited to 8 hours, and interstate commerce in articles made by children under 14 was banned.

4/1/1910, The first Juvenile Courts in Britain opened in London.

1908, In the UK, the Children and Young Persons Act abolished the practice of sending children aged under 14 to prison. The death penalty was abolished for persons aged under 17. Special juvenile courts were set up for young offenders aged 7 to 16. This Act also made it an offence for parents to neglect their children’s health. See 1933. See also Crime and Punishment.

Other provisions of this Act included;

1) Children were now ‘protected persons’ and their parents could be prosecuted for neglect or cruelty.

2) Regular insoection of children’s (orphan’s) homes was instituted.

3) Publicans were prohibited from admitting children aged under 14.

4) Shopkeepers were probibiuted from selling

9/12/1908, Germany introduced restrictions on the hours that women and children could work in factories.

1906, The Education (Provision of Meals) Act allowed local authorities to use public money to provide free meals for children of poor parents. See also prices and the economy, years 1846 and 1834. The significance of this Act was that children were now being seen as a national asset for the future.

19/9/1905, Doctor Thomas Barnardo, who set up over 112 homes for deprived children from 1867, died aged 60 at Surbiton, SW London.

1901, In Britain the Factories and Workshops Act raised the minimum age of employment in factories to 12.

1900, France limited the working day for women and children to 11 hours.

1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12.

1891, In Britain the Factories and Workshops (Consolidation) Act raised the minimum age of employment in factories to 11.

1886, Italy made it illegal to employ children aged under 9, or under 10 in mines, or under 12 in night work.

1/10/1885, Lord Shaftesbury, reformer who made it illegal for children to work in factories, died this day. Many of London’s poor turned out to pay tribute.

8/7/1884. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded in London.

1874, In Brtiain the Factory Act raised the minimum age of employment to 9 in all sectors. Women and all young people to work no more than 10 hours a day in the textiles industry. Children under 14 to work only half a day.

1867, Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) established the East End Mission for Destitute Children. This subsequently expanded to comprise a number of homes across London, known as ‘Dr Barnardo’s Homes’. The organisation is now the charity known as Barnardos, the largest child care charity in the UK.

1867, The Factory Acts (Extension) Act extended all previous Factory Acts to all places of employment with more than 50 employees.

1864, In Britain the Factory Acts (Extension) Act extended the regulations on child employment hours in textiles and mining sectors to other dangerous sectors, including match-making, pottery and cartridge manufacture.

1862, In the UK, the Children’s Employment Commission was appointed to investigate the conditions of work in as-yet unregulated work sectors.

1859, The world’s first children’s playgrounds opened in Manchester, UK. Horizontal bars and swings were installed in Queen’s Park and Philips Park.

1850, In Britain the Factory Act now limited the times of day that women and young persons could be employed. They could only work between 6am and 6pm, with 1 hour break for meals. In 1853 a new Factory Act extended the compulsory meal break for children to 1 ½ hours.

8/6/1847. Britain passed the Factory Act, limiting the working day of women and children aged 13 to 18 to ten hours.

1842, In Britain the Mines Act prohibited both women, and all children aged under 10, from being employed underground. Inspectors of mines were appointed. Also in 1842 the Factories Act prohibited the employment of all women (aged 18 and over), and youths of both sexes aged between 13 and 18, from working more than 12 hours a day in textiles factories. Maximum work hours for children under 13 were reduced from 9 to 6 ½, however the mimum age for children starting work was reduced from 9 to 8. In the US, Massachusetts legislated to limit the working day of children under 12 to 10 hours a day.

1833, In Britain the Factory Act further restricted the emplpoyment of children in textiles factories. Children aged 9 to 13 to work no more than 9 hours a day and no more than 48 hours a week. Young persons aged 14 to 18 to work no more than 12 hours a day or 69 hours a week. No child under 9 to be employed in any textile factory except silk mills. No night work by anyone aged under 18 in any textile works except in lace factories. All children aged 9 to 11 (later, 13) to receive 2 hours compulsory education every day.

1831, In Britain the Truck Act prohibited payment for all workers in tokens and goods; all workers except domestic servants to be paid in coinage only. No young people aged under 18 to work more than 12 hours a day.

1819, In Britain the Factory Act prohibited the employment of children under 9 in cotton mills. Thoise aged 9 and over were restricted to a 12-hour day.

See also Education for improvements in Child Education during the 19^th Century

1802, In Britain, the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act prohibited workhouse children apprenticed to textile factories from working more than 11 hours a day; they were also to be provided with elementary education. The Overseer of the Poor and local magistrates were supposed to monitor compliance with this Act but often failed to do so.

Many pauper children from London were being sent to textile factories in the north of England to work long hours. Sir Robert Peel, the Bill’s proposer, objected that this practice allowed exploitation of children, far from their parents.

24/1/1800, Sir Edwin Chadwick, physician who promoted the Ten Hour Bill in the UK Parliament, which restricted children working in factories to a ten-hour day, was born in Longsight, Lancashire.

Appendix 5 – Clothing and Cosmetics

15/7/1997, Gianni Versace, clothes designer, was shot dead at the age of 50. The chief suspect was Andrew Cunanan, a gay serial killer; the FBI beleived Versace was shot in revenge for infecting other men with HIV. Cunanan was found dead on a houseboat at Miami Beach, having committed suicide when the police arrived. However there were rumours of a mafia money-laundering connection, and that Cunanan had been killed to hide the true killer’s identity.

17/9/1985, Fashion designer Laura Ashley died after falling downstairs at her home.

24/3/1972, Cristobal Balenciaga, Spanish fashion designer, died in Valencia, Spain.

10/1/1971. Coco Chanel, French fashion designer and one of the most influential couturiers of the twentieth century, died aged 87.

25/1/1970. Mary Crosby, inventor of the bra, died in Rome aged 77.

1967, The first Laura Ashley shop opened in London. Meanwhile Twiggy popularised a ‘waif’ type look.

23/9/1966.Mr Joe Kagan, raincoat maker to Mr Harold Wilson, suggested that by the 1980s men would be wearing something like a mini skirt with a toga over it in cold weather.

21/8/1964, In London, three women were found guilty of indecency for wearing ‘topless’ dresses.

8/2/1963, The Beatles were asked to leave the Carlisle Golf Club because they were wearing leather jackets.

1962, The first silicone breast implants were carried out in the USA.

1960, Lycra was first produced commercially, foir swimwear. Developed by Du Pont in 1959, it was used for swimwear, being stretchy and clingy.

1959, The Mayor of Benidorm, Pedro Zaragoza Orts was excommunicated by the local archbishop after he signed an order permitting the wearing of bikinis on the city’s beaches.

30/1/1958, Yves St Laurent held his first Paris fashion show, aged 22. He was apprenticed to Christian Dior at 18 and when Dior died in 1959 he became head designer of the Dior fashion house.

1956, Velcro was patented by the Swiss inventor, George de Mestral. Inspired by the way burs attached to clothes, its name derived from a combination of velour (velvet) and crochet (hook).

1955, Tight jeans were fashionable in North America and western Europe.

1953, Ultra high stiletto heels were the main thing in fashion.

1952, Acrilan, a synthetic fibre discovered in the 1940s, began to be used for clothing manufacture.

4/10/1950, Three generations of the Bowler family marked the centenary of the bowler hat.

See Science and Technology for the plastics inventions of the 1930s and 40s which made new fashions, cosmetics and clothes possible in the 1950s and 60s.

1949, The firsr aerosol hairspray for women was marketed. Hair could now be kept ‘in place’ all day without the need to visit a hairdresser; in 1952 25 million aerosol hairspray cans were sold.

1947, False ‘eyelash strips’ were first used in movies to nehnace the looks of stars such as Elizabeth taylor and Sophie Loren. Female moviegoers soon demanded a version for themselves, which was marketed in the 1950s under the name ‘Eyelure’.

5/7/1946. The bikini was officially invented by French engineer Louis Reard. “It is a two-piece bathing suit that reveals everything about a girl except her mother’s maiden name”, said the Americans about the bikini. Two months earlier the French designer Jacques Heim had created the Atome, another two-piece bathing suit, so Louis Reard was inspired to create an even smaller bathing suit. Reard knew he had created an explosive item, so he called it the bikini, as the US military exploded an atom bomb on the south Pacific island of Bikini atoll. No Parisian model would wear the bikini at the time as it was considered indecent, but Reard hired a nude dancer, Micheline Bernardini, to wear it at his presentation. The bikini was banned in several Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy, but Reard kept promoting the garment, insisting it was not a real bikini unless “it could be pulled through a wedding ring”. In the 1950s Brigitte Bardot helped promote the bikini and by the 1970s it was more or less accepted in most countries.

3/2/1946, The Hosiery Designers of America chose actress Jane Russell’s legs as the ‘perfect pair’.

18/11/1945, Dr W N Leek, in Cheshire, claimed that the falling UK birth-rate was due to people wearing pyjamas in bed instead of nightshirts.

11/2/1943, Mary Quant, Welsh fashion designer, was boirn.

1942, The US Navy issued specifications for a new type of undershort, called the ‘T-shirt’, made of white cotton with a round neck and short sleeves at right angles to the body making a ‘T’. The new garment, eminently suited to bearing printed slogans or symbols, began to be worn as a shirt on its own by the end of World War Two.

1941, In Switzerland, Velcro was patented by George de Mestrel. He returned home from a walk to find burrs stuck to his clothing. Examining them under the microscope he saw tiny hools, and sought to improve on zips that were prone to jamming. The name Velcro comes from velours croche, French for hooked velvet. Commercial manufacturing of Velcro began in 1952.

15/5/1940. Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time, in America. In New York. Alone, 72,000 pairs were sold in the first eight hours. The name was reputedly inspired by the cities with the greatest fashion potential for this new product – New York and London. Rising hemlines from the 1920s had created a need for some sort of covering to smooth out colour imperfections and bumps on women’s legs, now exposed for the first time in centuries.

1/8/1936. The French designer Yves St Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria.

16/5/1934, Officials at Wimbledon first allowed women competitors to wear shorts.

7/9/1925. Laura Ashley, clothes designer, was born (died 1985).

8/4/1925. Italian Catholic bishops banned scantily clad or bare legged women from churches.

1923, The word ‘zip’ (see 1851) was coined by the US company BF Goodrich, who launched a range of zip-fastening galoshes in 1932. They wanted an ‘action word’ that would dramatise their product.

1922, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) banned the Fez hat in Turkey as he westernised the country.

22/5/1921. The US city of Chicago planned to fine women for wearing short skirts and exposed arms.

5/5/1921, Coco Chanel’s Chanel no. 5 Perfume was launched.

1917, The need for women to cut their hair short for work in the factories led to the fashion for the ‘bob’ hairstyle.

1916, False eyelashes were invented by US film director DW Griffith for his 1916 film, Intolerance. The film was critically acclaimed, but was a financial failure, however the eyelashes caugh on. Also around this time, nail polish and bright red lipstick began to be employed by Hollywood for glamourising its actresses, creating new fashions in the widre world.

20/11/1914, Emilio Pucci, Italian fashion designer, was born in Naples, Italy.

13/11/1914. The brassiere was patented in the USA by heiress Mary Phelps Jacob.

4/11/1914. At the Ritz-Carlton hotel, New York, Edna Chase of Vogue magazine organised the first catwalk fashion show.

1913, Gideon Sundbach, a Swedish-American, produced the first practical zip fastener, see 1851.

15/7/1913. In Richmond Park, near London, a woman was arrested for wearing a split skirt.

9/3/1913, Andre Courreges, French couturier who invented the mini skirt in 1964, was born.

4/11/1912, Pauline Trigere, fashion designer, was born in Paris.

23/7/1912, In the USA, the ‘Modesty League’ protested against tight dresses.

1908, In the US, electric irons went on sale.

1906, The first Panama Hat to be so-named was worn by US President Roosevelt during a tour of the Panama Canal.

21/1/1904, Christian Dior, French fashion designer, was born.

8/1/1904, Pope Pius X banned women from wearing low-cut dresses in the presence of Church dignitaries.

10/9/1896, Elsa Schiaparelli, sportswear designer, was born in Rome.

1886, The California Perfume Company was founded (based in New York) by David McConnell. In 1939 he renamed the company Avon Products after the town of his favourite playwright, William Shakespeare. It became famous through the slogan ‘Avon calling’.

10/10/1886. The dinner jacket made its first appearance in public when it was worn by its creator at a ball in the Tuxedo Park Country Club, New York. Hence it was later known as the Tuxedo.

19/8/1883, ‘Coco’ Chanel, French fashion designer, was born near Issoire as Gabrielle Chanel.

1881, The Rational Dress Society weas founded. It promoted clothing for women that ‘followed, not contradicted, the lines of the body’ and stated that female clothing should promote, not impede, mobility and action. See Women’s Rights.

1874, Levis began using copper rivets on jeans.

1872, The first Alice Band was named after Alice, main character in Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass.

1865, The first rubber Wellington boots were made. They were named after a type of riding boot named after Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington.

1860, Artificial dyes now made clothes brighter-coloured.

1855, The first artificial fibre, rayon, was invented.

1853, A Bavarian migrant called Levi Strauss arrived in the US, and set up a clothing company to make heavy duty clothing for the miners digging in the California Gold Rush. He added copper rivets to the jeans in 1873.

1851, The first bloomers were made commercially, see Women’s Rights.

1851, In the USA, Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine, patented an early zip or ‘continuous clothing closure’, but he did not exploit it commercially. See 1913, 1923.

4/10/1850, The bowler hat went on general sale in London.

17/12/1849, Landowner Edward Coke tested a new type of hat he had ordered to protect his head from low-hanging branches whilst out hunting; top hats were too easily knocked off. This day he visited the Lockes hatters shop in St James, London, to test the new bowler hat, named after its designer, by jumping on it twice. It withstood the test and he bought it.

1843, In the USA, Charles Atwood was granted a patent for a new hook and eye system of clothes fastening. Previously people had used pins laces, clasps buttons and buckles to fasten their clothes.

1823, In Scotland, Charles Mackintosh made the first waterproof cloth.

27/10/1811, Isaac Singer, inventor of the sewing machine, was born in New York.

1807, Tsar Alexander I of Russia banned trousers, probably because the French Revolutionaries had worn them in preference to the hitherto fashionable knee-breches worn by men in the 1700s. He ordered Russian troops to stop and inspect carriages, and any trousers found would be cut off at the knee.

1800, European fashion now began to favour shorter hair for both men and women. Men started wearing trousers instead of knee-breeches.

15/1/1797, The top hat first appeared in London, worn by James Hetherington. He was fined £50 for wearing this attire, and causing a breach of the peace.

11/2/1765. English wig-makers petitioned George III for financial relief as the male fashion of wearing wigs came to an end.

1747, In France, Francois Fresnau made the first raincoat.

1640, Men now ceased to wear the heavy gold and silver neck chains, often with pendants, which had earlier been in fashion in western Europe.

1624, Philip IV of Spain reduced his household staff and banned the wearing of ruffs. This symbol of extravagance was passing out of fashion across Europe, as austerity replaced luxury.

1600, The average age oif marriage for women in Japan had risen to 24, from 21 a century earlier. This was a result of the growth in the silk industry; households needed their daughters toi stay at home for longer to help with spinning and weaving.

1503, Pocket handkerchiefs came into use in Europe.

1499, The first recorded white wedding dress was worn, by Anne of Brittany when marrying King Louis XII of France.

1200, In Europe, engagement rings came into fashion.

410, Huns, invading the Roman Empire, introduced trousers which began to replace togas. They also introduced the stirrup, which made horse riding easier.

1500 BCE, Silk was being woven in China.

1800 BCE, Minoan men and women both wore corsets.

3000 BCE, Cotton fabrics were first produced in the Indus Valley region.

Appendix 6 – Drugs

1/1/2018, The US State of California legalised the sale and consumption of cannabis for personal use. The substance was already legal in five other US States; Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

1/1/2014, The US State of Colorado legalised the sale and consumption of cannabis for personal use.

1996, US President Clinton increased the obstacles to drugs convicts of accessing the US welfare system.

1986, The Anti-Drug Abuse Act opened up a racial divide in the punishment for drugs possession. Possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine (used mainly by Black people) attracted a sentence of 5 years without parole – as did possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine (used mainly by White people).

1985, US President Reagan hired a team of staff to raise a moral alarm about the emergence of crack cocaine.

1982, US President Reagan restated a commitment to the ‘war on drugs’.

22/4/1979, Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones escaped a drugs conviction in return for performing a benefit concert for the Canadian National institute for the Blind.

2/2/1979, Sid Vicious (born as John Ritchie), former band member of the Sex Pistols, died of a heroin overdose at a party in New York, aged 21.

1973, The Governor of New York, Nelson Rockerfeller, passed draconian drugs laws, making possession of even small amounts of drugs punishable by 15 years to life imprisonment.

31/8/1973. The growing drugs menace in Britain was investigated by the TV programme Midweek on Drugs.

1/3/1972, A 14-year-old boy, Timothy Davey, from London was convicted of conspiring to sell cannabis in Turkey.

1971, US President Nixon declared a ‘war on drugs’.

25/1/1970. Mick Jagger was fined £200 plus 50 guineas costs for possessing cannabis resin.

23/1/1969, The British Government rejected proposals to cut penalties for smoking cannabis.

31/12/1967, Hippies embraced love, flower power, LSD and the Rolling Stones as a cure for the world’s ills.

30/10/1967. Statistics showed that the number of Britain’s drug addicts under 20 rose from 145 in 1965 to 329 in 1966.

24/7/1967, Graham Greene, Francis Crick, and The Beatles were among those who signed a full-page advertisement in The Times, saying the law against marijuana was ‘immoral in principle and unworkable in practice’.

6/10/1966, California made possession of LSD illegal.

16/7/1966. The Home Secretary Roy Jenkins decided that the drug LSD-25 should be controlled under the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, following a rise in use of the drug by young people.

1/2/1964. The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain called for unauthorised possession of amphetamines to be made an offence.

26/1/1956. The UK banned the import and export of heroin.

28/8/1928, In Britain the Dangerous Drugs Act (1925) was amended to make the use of cannabis illegal.

1914, In the USA, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, restricting the sale of opiates and cocaine; the country’s first ‘war on drugs’.

Apendix 7 –Family relations. See also Women’s Rights for Divorce (dates of legalisation of)

14/7/1997. In California a Bill was signed allowing women to breast feed in public.

12/1/1993. London’s first refuge for battered husbands opened.

14/4/1992, In Florida, an 11-year old boy successfully ‘divorced’ his parents in court.

10/12/1991, The marriage rate in England and Wales was less than half what it was 20 years ago, as nearly a third of couples in their 20s chose to cohabit, not marry. At least 10% of marriages ended in divorce within 5 years.

1975, A survey in the USA found that 30% of women thought extramarital sex was wrong; in 1963 80% of women thought it was wrong.

1960, In the US, the percentage of married women who were employed had risen to 32%, up from 25% in 1950.

19/11/1959, The Archbishop of Canterbury said adultery should be a criminal offence.

16/3/1958. Mothers who worked full-time were condemned as enemies of family life by the Bishop of Woolwich.

27/3/1947, To stem the rising tide of divorce, the |British Government pledged more funding for the Marriage Guidance Council.

28/11/1946, In Britain the House of Lords was told of a ‘tidal wave of divorce sweeping Britain’.

445 BCE, In Rome the Lex Canuleia permitted intermarriage between patricians and plebeians in Rome.

Appendix 8 – Gambling

7/5/1995. UK betting shops opened on Sundays for the first time.

1/5/1961. Off-course betting shops became legal in Britain. They were legalised under the Betting and Gaming Act, 1960. 10,000 of them opened within the first 6 months thereafter.

1/6/1957. The Church condemned the £1 Premium Bonds as a ’squalid raffle’.

25/4/1938, Postal workers, tradesmen and Baptists joined forces against the growing popularity of football pools. Baptists disapproved of them on moral grounds, as a form of gambling. Post offices wanted extra payments for handling the rapidly growing volume of pools traffic. Meanwhile a butcher in Worthing claimed his customers were buying cheaper cuts of meat to save up for the pools.

3/7/1902. In Britain, a House of Lords ruling restricted betting to the sites of sporting events.

Appendix 9 – Homosexuality and attitudes towards

7/12/2017, The Australian Parliament legalised same-sex marriage, a month after a referendum showed strong support for the move.

24/5/2017, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. At this time Isreal recognised gay marriages conducted elsewhere but they could not be performed in Israel. Homosexuality could be punished by death in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The taboos against homosexuality were slowly vanishing in Vietnam and Nepal. In Africa, South Africa was the only African country where same sex marriage was legal. In Suda, Somalia and Mauretania, gay people faced the death penalty. A small number of African countries, including Congo (DR), Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali and Mozambique, did not have laws against homosexuality.

11/2016, A planned freferendum on whether same sex marriage should be allowed in Australia was blocked by the upper house of Parliament.

6/2015, With same sex marriages still illegal in 14 States of the US, a Supreme Court decision legalised same sex marriages in all parts of the USA.

23/5/2015, Ireland voted by a margin of 2:1 to legalise gay marriage. The result, 1,201,607 UES votes against 734,300 NO, was remarkable in a strongly Catholic country. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, said the Church may have become disconnected with young people, and ruled out gay marriages in Catholic churches.

10/2014, Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to legalise civil partnerships.

29/3/2014, Same-sex marriages became legal in England and Wales.

2013, 2% of British Catholics believed homosexuality was wrong, compared to 68% in 1983. However in 2013 52% of British Muslims said homosexuality was wrong.

24/12/2013, Alan Turing, the mathematician who broke the Nazi codes during World War Two but who was convicted of gross indecency for a homosexual act with a man in 1952, was posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II. He was given chemical castration but his criminal record meant he could no longer work for GCHQ and he committed suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1954, aged 41. Prominent figures including Stephen Hawking and Peter Tatchell had been campaigning for a pardon for several years.

17/4/2013, Same sex marriage was legalised in New Zealand.

2/4/2013, Uruguay legalised same-sex marriages.

7/11/2012, Voters in Maryland, Maine and Washington approved same sex marriages.

17/8/2012, Moscow banned any Gay Pride events for the next 100 years.

7/3/2012, The UN presented its report on violations of the human rights of gay people worldwide. Representatives of several African and Arab States walked out.

2009, Mexico legalised same-sex marriages. Civil unions between same-sex couples had been legalised there in 2007.

5/12/2005, In the UK, the Civil Partnership Act came into force; this gave same sex partnerships the same legal status as heterosexual marriages.

1/12/2005, South Africa became the fifth country in the world to recognise same-sex marriages.

24/8/2005, A Hong Kong Judge, Michael Hartmann, ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional.

20/7/2005, Canada’s Civil Marriage Act, legalising same-sex marriages, received Royal Assent.

30/6/2005, Spain joined Belgium and The Netherlands in permitting same-sex marriages.

18/11/2004, In the UK, the Civil Partnership Bill, allowing registered unions for same-sex couples, received Royal Assent.

17/5/2004, Massachusetts legalised same-sex marriages, in compliance with a ruling from the state’s Supreme Court.(Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health).

2/3/2002, The 24^th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was held in Australia.

2001, The British Virgin Islands legalised gay sex.

1/4/2001, In The Netherlands, same-sex marriages were made legal. This was the first time such marriages had been legal there since the time of Nero.

3/3/2001, The 23^rd Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was held in Australia.

25/4/2000, The State of Vermont passed the HB847 law legalising civil unions for same-sex couples

10/2/1998, Voters in Maine repealed a gay rights law made in 1997, becoming the first US State to abandon such a law.

1/5/1997. Tasmania became the last Australian State to decriminalise homosexuality.

19/12/1994, Civil unions between homosexuals were made legal in Sweden.

21/2/1994, In Britain, Parliament voted to lower the age of consent for homosexuals from 21 to 18.

19/1/1994, Jane Brown, headmistress of a school in Hackney, London, barred pupils from seeing Romeo and Juliet because it was ‘too heterosexual’.

24/6/1993, Ireland legalised gay sex with an equal age of consent as for homosexuals, 17.

1991, The Bahamas legalised gay sex.

1989, Denmark became the first country to legalise same-sex marriages.

24/5/1988, In the UK, the controversial Section 28 law was passed. This made the promotion of homosexuality in schools illegal.

1979, Cuba legalised gay sex.

11/7/1977. British magazine Gay News was fined £1,000 for publishing a poem about a homosexual Jesus.

27/11/1970. The Gay Liberation Front marched in London for the first time.

6/1969, A riot began when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a venue frequented by homosexuals, in Greenwich Village, New York City.

27/71967, In the UK, the Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised homosexuality. Two men could have sex together if they were above the age of 21.

18/11/1962. Bishop Ambrose Reeves encouraged Oxford students to write to their MPs urging them to repeal the laws on homosexuality.

4/9/1957. In the UK, the Wolfenden Report recommended decriminalising homosexual acts between consenting adults. This would remove a significant cause of blackmail. ‘Adult’ meant aged 21 or over; some feared this would be a licence for child abuse. On 14/11/1957 the Church of England backed the Wolfenden reforms. However the UK government shied away from this controversial change to the law. It was only in June 1967 when the Sexual Offences Bill legalised such homosexual acts as Wolfenden recommended.

1952, In the UK, Alan Turing was convicted of gross indecency and chemically castrated.

31/10/1940, Craig Rodwell, gay rights activist, was born in Chicago, Illinois (died 1993)

1897, The first organisation to promote homosexual rights was set up, in Germany. It lasted until the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.

19/5/1897, Oscar Wilde was released from Reading gaol.

25/5/1895, Oscar Wilde’s second trial ended, and he was sentenced to two year’s hard labour.

26/4/1895. At the Old Bailey, the trial of Oscar Wilde for homosexuality, then a crime, began.

5/4/1895, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel at the Old Bailey. The Marquess was alleged to have left a note at Mr Wilde’s club accusing him of sodomy. The Marquess, keen on boxing, was annoyed that his son, Alfred, had an intimate relationship with Mr Wilde. Oscar Wilde lost his case.

1861, In the UK, the Offences Against the Person Act repealed the death penalty for sodomy.

1804, Haiti became an independent state; it has never had laws against gay sex.

1533, In England, the Buggery Act was passed by Parliament, making sodomy and bestiality criminal offences.

590 BC, The female Greek poet Sappho was writing about love on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Appendix 10 – Pornography and intimacy

9/8/1979. Brighton established Britain’s first nudist beach.

17/7/1970, The sex comedy Oh! Calcutta! opened in London.

27/9/1968, The Rock musical Hair with 13 naked actors opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, the day after the Theatres Act lifted censorship of it.

10/11/1960, The initial print run of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 200,000 copies at 3s 6d each, sold out on the first day.

2/11/1960, The publisher of Lady Chatterley’s :Lover was found not guilty on 2/11/1960. On 10/11/1960, the first day of publication, 200,000 copies were sold in Britain.

20/10/1960. D H Lawrence’s book Lady Chatterley’s Lover put Penguin Books in the dock at the Old Bailey, under the Obscene Publications Act.

19/8/1960, In London, Penguin Books was prosecuted for obscenity over its plans to publish Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

29/2/1960, Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago. Brought up in a strict Methodist home, Hefner started the Playboy Magazine with US$ 10,000 in 1953.

27/2/1960. The magazine ‘Playboy’ was banned in Connecticut.

16/6/1930. Mixed bathing allowed for the first time in the Serpentine, Hyde Park.

19/4/1927, The US actress Mae West was convicted of obscenity for writing, producing and directing a Broadway musical called Sex.

9/1/1927. Greta Garbo and John Gilbert - real life lovers – shocked cinemagoers in New York by their uninhibited kissing in the silent film Flesh and the Devil.

1920, At Motzener Zee, Germany, the first official nudist camp opened at Frei Sonnenland.

25/12/1913, In New York, a couple were arrested for kissing in the street.

5/4/1910. France banned kissing on its railways, because it caused delays.

1/11/1905. Police closed George Bernard Shaw’s play, Mrs Warren’s Profession, because of its portrayal of prostitution.

9/1/1902. New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.

13/3/1894. The world’s first professional striptease performance took place at the Divan Fayanou Music Hall, Paris. It consisted of a woman getting ready for bed.

9/2/1893. The world’s first public striptease took place at the Moulin Rouge, Paris.

6/10/1889, The Moulin Rouge cabaret opened in Paris.

9/3/1562. Kissing in public was banned in Naples, contravention being punishable by death. This was an attempt to halt the spread of the plague.

801, Emperor Charlemagne banned prostitution.

Appendix 11 – Religion, See also Christianity

15/2/1981. Football League games were played on a Sunday for the first time.

25/9/1976. A Danish film director was planning a film on Jesus’ sex life.

8/1/1974. In Rome, youths protested against the film Jesus Christ Superstar. The film’s makers protested that this film should not be confused with the Danish film Jesus Christ Superstud.

4/8/1966, John Lennon suggested that The Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus’. Within days US radio stations had banned their music and there were public bonfires of their records.

9/2/1958, A play by Irish-born Samuel Beckett was banned from London stages due to blasphemy.

25/2/1930, In the UK, a Bill to abolish blasphemy as a criminal offence was dropped.

14/8/1870. John Galsworthy, English author, was born in Combe, Surrey. When his Forsyte Saga was dramatised on BBC TV on Sundays in the 1960s, clergymen had to change times of their evening service to get a congregation.

1/7/1559, Missing Church in Britain incurred a fine of one shilling (5p). However by 1581 this penalty had been raised to a swingeing £20 a month.

Appendix 12 - Temperance & Prohibition (of alcohol), See also Food

"I can't think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they're dead." - Laura Kightlinger, US actress

1/6/2008, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, introduced a ban on drinking alcohol on the London Underground.

21/8/1988, British licencing laws were relaxed to allow pubs to open for 12 hours a day.

1/4/1985, The UK Government imposed an alcohol ban on selected football grounds.

15/7/1948. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in London, having been in existence in America since 1935.

12/5/1935, A chance meeting between two alcoholics, Dr Robert Smith and William Wilson, which led to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

5/12/1933. Prohibition Laws repealed in the USA, by the 21^st Amendment, after over 13 dry years, leaving individual States free to determine their known drinks laws. See 16/1/1920. Utah was the last state to ratify the 21^st Amendment, which nullified the 19^th Amendment of 1919 prohibiting the manufacture sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors. Prohibition had not stopped alcohol consumption, but merely driven it underground into the criminal world. America celebrated so much that 1.5 million barrels of beer were drunk the first night. Towns ran dry, and were drunk dry again the next night too. Prohibition had simply created enormous opportunities for organised crime.

11/8/1932, US President Hoover said it was time to scrap Prohibition.

30/1/1932. Finland in a referendum vote chose to end prohibition of alcohol.

12/6/1931. Al Capone and 68 henchmen were charged with 5,000 offences regarding breaching the USA Prohibition laws.

31/10/1929, Nova Scotia voted to repeal Prohibition. This left Prince Edward Island as the only ‘dry’ region in Canada.

1928. Under Prohibition, over 1,500 Americans went blind each year through drinking bad liquor, and bootlegger wars killed hundreds more. Enforcing Prohibition was costly, and had by no means halted alcohol consumption.

13/7/1923, Britain made sales of alcohol to under-18s illegal.

30/4/1923. The US only permitted alcohol consumption on ships 3 miles or more out at sea.

6/10/1922. Alcohol was banned on all US ships in port.

23/11/1921, In the US, President Harding banned doctors from prescribing beer.

4/12/1920. An attempt to introduce Prohibition to Scotland failed.

16/1/1920. Prohibition began in the USA (18^th Amendment), and the sale, manufacture, or involvement with alcohol was banned.