The Calendar of Literary Facts contains more than 6,500 events in literary history.

Abolitionist John Brown leads a raid on the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia

Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

The War of National Unification is fought in Italy

Charles Dickens publishes A Tale of Two Cities

Harriet E. Adams Wilson publishes Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There. By “Our Nig”

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins is born

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia is published in a translation by Edward FitzGerald

A. E. Housman is born

Explore: A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young, A Shropshire Lad

Arthur Conan Doyle is born

Explore: The Red-Headed League, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Lost World, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Best of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Verner von Heidenstam is born

Knut Pederson (Knut Hamsun) is born

Explore: Growth of the Soil, Hunger

Leigh Hunt dies

Explore: Leigh Hunt, Summary of "The Glove and the Lions" by Leigh Hunt

Irving Bacheller is born

Henri Bergson is born

Explore: Henri Bergson

Washington Irving dies

Explore: The Devil and Tom Walker, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving