United Kingdom

More details Countess Constance Markiewicz

Constance Markievicz becomes first woman elected to U.K.’s House of Commons

Constance Georgine Markievicz was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, and the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament. On 28 December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the UK House of Commons, though, being in Holloway Prison at the time and in accordance with party policy, she did not take her seat. She was also one of the first women in the world to hold a cabinet position, as Ireland’s Minister for Labour from 1919 to 1922.

James Blyth's windmill at his cottage in Marykirk in 1891

James Blyth of Scotland builds world’s first ever wind turbine used for electricity generation

Blyth’s 10 m high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was “the work of the devil.”

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Samuel Bentham invents plywood

In his patent applications, he described the concept of laminating several layers of veneer with glue to form a thicker piece — the first description of what we now call plywood.

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