Modern Age (1774 – 1945 CE)

Age of Revolutions (1774 – 1849)

1776

• Jemima Wilkinson nearly dies of a fever — when she recovers, she claims the identity of the genderless Publick Universal Friend.
• October 13: The Publick Universal Friend gives their first sermon, less than a week after recovering from fever.

1785

• Jeremy Bentham writes a paper entitled “Offences Against Oneself” arguing that consensual sexual acts between two adults in the privacy of a home should not be illegal.

1798 CE

• George Gordon Byron, at ten years old, inherits the title of Lord Byron and becomes a member of the landed gentry.

1800

• The Publick Universal Friend is taken to court for blasphemy, but the courts rule that blasphemy is not against the law in the United States due to separation of church and state.
• Lord Byron begins writing poetry.

1806

• Anne Lister begins keeping a coded diary.

1809 CE

• Lord Byron embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, where he claims to sleep with more than 200 men.

1811

• Denmark decriminalizes homosexuality when it adopts Napoleon’s legal code.

1812 CE

• The first two cantos of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” are published and Lord Byron becomes something of a celebrity.

1815 CE

• Lord Byron marries Annabella Millbanke.

1816 CE

• Annabella Millbanke publicly separates from Lord Byron amid rumors of incest. Lady Caroline Lamb would soon add rumors of sodomy to the scandals surrounding him.
• April 25: Lord Byron leaves England.

1823 CE

• Lord Byron travels to Greece to aid in the fight for Greek independence. He sells Rochdale Manor for 11,250 pounds and opens his coffers to the cause.

Victorian Era (1837 – 1901)

1830

• Anne Lister is the first woman to climb Monte Perdido in the Pyrenees.

1838

• Anne Lister and Ann Walker became the first women and the first non-locals to climb Vignemale — the tallest mountain in the French Pyrenees.

1862

• Albert Cashier enlists in the Union army, joining the 95th Illinois Infantry.
• Karl Heinrich Ulrichs officially comes out to his family as an “Urning” — the term he coined for homosexual men — declaring that his feelings are both biological and natural.

1865

• August 17: The 95th Illinois Infantry disbands, and Albert Cashier returns to Belvidere, Illinois.

1867

• After briefly being imprisoned in Prussia, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs moves to Munich. There he will speak to the German Association of Jurists on behalf of LGBT rights.

1868

• May 8: Karl-Maria Kertbeny first uses the term “homosexual” in a private letter.

1870

• Karl Heinrich Ulrichs publishes “Araxes: a Call to Free the Nature of the Urning from Penal Law” where he calls sexuality a “right established by nature.”

1876

• June 17: Osch-Tisch and The Other Magpie fight in the Battle of Rosebud.

1879

• Karl Heinrich Ulrichs publishes his twelfth book, entitled “Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love” and then sends himself into a self-imposed exile in Naples.

Machine Age (1880 – 1945)

1884

• Mwanga II becomes kabaka of Buganda.

1885

• October 29: Mwanga II has the archbishop James Hannington assassinated.
• January 31: Mwanga II begins the executions of the 30 Christians who will become the Uganda Martyrs.

1886

• Richard von Krafft-Ebing borrows the word “homosexual” from Karl-Maria Kertbeny‘s works, and the term begins to enter mainstream usage.

1890

• December 26: Mwanga II formalizes a treaty with the British and Buganda becomes part of the the British Protectorate of Uganda.

1894

• The British Protectorate of Uganda formally criminalizes homosexual behavior between men.

1897

• May 15: The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee is founded.
• July 6: Mwanga II declares war on Britain.
• July 20: Mwanga II is defeated and flees into German East Africa, where he is arrested. He escapes again.

1898

• January 15: Mwanga II attacks the British held Uganda with an army, but is defeated again and exiled.

1899

• The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee begins publishing the “Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types”.

1911

• Albert Cashier is hit by an automobile. During treatment, the secret of his biological sex is discovered, though his doctor keeps it a secret. Albert is forced to move into the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Illinois.

World War I Era (1914 – 1918)

1915

• October 10: Albert Cashier dies due to an injury received by tripping over his skirt. Those who served with him ensured he received an official Grand Army of the Republic funeral and was buried in full military honors.

1919

• An investigation into homosexual activity within the Naval personnel stationed in Newport, Rhode Island begins.

The Roaring Twenties (1920 – 1929)

1921

• July 21: The U.S. Senate Committee on Naval Affairs officially renounces the tactics used in the Newport investigation.

1923

• The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee stops regularly publishing the “Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types”. They continue to publish it sporadically.
• Paramount Records asks Ma Rainey to record songs with them.

1925

• Ma Rainey is arrested for “running an indecent party” — a lesbian orgy. Bessie Smith pays her bail.

1928

• Ma Rainey records and releases “Prove It On Me Blues” — a scandalous song about lesbianism. This is also Ma Rainey’s final year recording for Paramount Records.

The Great Depression (192- 1939)

1933

• The Nazis destroy the Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin — the headquarters of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. The group disbands.

World War II (1939 – 1945)

1939

• September 3: Britain declares war on Germany
• September 4: Alan Turing reports for duty at the Government Code & Cipher School in Bletchley Park.

1943

• Allied forces invade Sicily, storing munitions in the Addaura Cave. Some of the stored ammunition explodes, exposing previously undiscovered prehistoric rock art.
• March 27: Willem Arondeus leads the bombing of the Amsterdam Public Records Office, in order to hinder Nazi efforts to root out Jews in the area.
• July 1: Willem Arondeus is executed by Nazis. His last message is: “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”