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BCE: (Before Common Era)
| Time | Event |
|---|
| Ca. 5000 BCE: | Creation of rock drawings at Ti-n-Lalan, near Fezzan in Libya, showing an animal headed creature with a gigantic penis, and an animal/man hybrid, having sex. |
| Ca. 2500 BCE: | Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, in the Sumerian poem cycles that constitute one of the oldest known pieces of literature, meets Enkidu, the only man who rivals him for strength and bravery. They become lovers and particularly enjoy wrestling with each other. |
| 2355 - 2261 BCE: | The reign of Egyptian King Pepy II Neferkare who, in what may be history's first homosexual short story, makes nocturnal visits to have sex with his general, Sisinne. |
| Ca. 1900 BCE: | Destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Too bad the bible is not more explicit about the reason. The interpretation hinges on the Hebrew word meaning "to know." The term is used 943 times in the Old Testament; only 15 of these times is it a euphemism for sexual activity. In the New Testament, the only reference to Sodom (Luke 10:10) identifies the sin as inhospitality. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah probably had nothing to do with sexuality. |
| 1503-1354 BCE: | The reign of Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut who adopted male dress and even wore a false beard. |
| Ca. 1250 BCE: | The Ani Papyrus shows the rite of the "animation of the phallus." It appears to
be one of the earliest recorded examples of a blow job. |
| Ca. 1000 BCE: | The Israelite king Saul demands of David, as a bride-price for his daughter Michal, 100 Philistine foreskins. |
| Ca. 730 BCE: | "Krimon warms the heart of Simias" is one of several lines of homosexual graffiti that constitute one of the earliest know uses of the Greek alphabet. |
| 7th Century BCE: | Ashurbanipal, the last Assyrian king, dresses in women's clothing most of the time. The cross-dressing is used to justify his eventual overthrow. |
| 600 BCE: | After this date it becomes customary for Greek hoplites, the upper class warriors who fight in the phalanx, each to take a boy of 12 as a lover to train until he is 18 and can hunt and fight. In Crete a ritual kidnapping consecrates the pairing. |
| 580's BCE: | Sappho's famed girls' school flourishes on the isle of Lesbos. Her exquisite love poems to students are the earliest known lesbian writings. |
| Ca. 540 BCE: | The Etruscan Tomb of the Bulls at Tarquinia, with its fresco depicting one man anally penetrating another. |
| 418 BCE, Dec. 25: | Birth of Epaminondas, one of the great military geniuses of the ancient world. Like other Greek warriors he loved boys, but for him delight in boys was complete, he never married or produced an heir. His two favorite boys fell in battle and, by his order, were buried with him in his tomb. |
| 382 BCE, April 18: | Birth of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. In 350 BC he leaves on a military expedition, taking with him 800 boys to be used for the pleasure of himself and his officers. |
| 378 BCE: | The Sacred Band of Thebes is formed. This military unit consists entirely of 150 male couples and is based upon the belief that men fighting alongside their lovers would die rather than shame one another. |
| 356 BCE, July 20: | The birth of Alexander of Macedonia -- known to history as Alexander the Great -- king, general, world conqueror, and lover of men, particularly Hephaiston, whose death in 324 he mourns extravagantly, and the eunuch slave boy Bagoas, who had been a favorite of Persian king Darius. |
| 338 BCE: | The Sacred Band of Thebes is annihilated by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander at the Battle of Chaeronea. The 300 stood their ground and perished. |
| 333 BCE: | Alexander of Macedonia begins his campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, and takes Egypt and much of Asia before turning back in central India. |
| 324 BCE: | The death of Hephaiston, lover of Alexander the Great. |
| 323 BCE, June 10: | Death of Alexander the Great. |
| 300 BCE: | Addeaus of Macedon is quoted as saying, "When you meet a boy who pleases take action at once. Don't be polite, just grab him by the balls and strike while the iron is hot." |
| 186 BCE: | The Roman Senate attempts to suppress the Bacchanalian rites in which, according to the historian Livy, there is more debauchery among the men with each other than with the women. |
| 100 BCE, July 13 BCE: | Birth of Gaius Julius Caesar in Rome. "Wife to every man and husband to every woman." |
| 71 BCE: | Revolt of Roman slaves, led by Spartacus. The revolution is crushed by consuls Pompey and Crassus and the slaves are crucified along the Appian Way. |
| 10 BCE, Aug. 1 BCE: | Birth of Claudius, Emperor of Rome. Robert Graves' novels, and Masterpiece Theatre's production of I Claudius enlightened us, but not about Emperor Claudius' contributions to the gladiatorial games or of his male lovers. |
| 1 BCE: | Publication of Ovid's Ars Amatoria, the first self-help sex manual. |
1 -999 CE
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 12 CE, Aug. 31: | birth of the future Roman emperor, Caligula |
| 26 CE: | The Roman Emperor Tiberius (born Nov 16, 42 BC) retires to Capri, where he indulges in all forms of sexual exploration. |
| 39 CE, Sept. 4: | birth of the future Roman Emperor, Titus. He was not a Tiberius or Caligula or Nero, or even a Claudius. But he did complete the coliseum, the site of some of the bloodiest activities yet to come in Roman history. |
| 41 CE, Jan 21: | Roman Emperor Caligula killed by a guard who had been frequently forced to kiss the royal middle finger in public, and other things in private. (Birth Aug 31, 12 CE) |
| 45-68 CE: | Reign of Nero (born Dec. 15, 37 BCE), who as Emperor of Rome, would elevate torture to new heights as a spectator sport. |
| 53 CE, Sept. 15: | Birth of Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, who became the Roman Emperor Trajan, the first non-Italian emperor. His accomplishments were many, not only in battle, but in the construction of public works. All of the ancient sources discuss Trajan's homosexuality candidly, differing only in the stories used to illustrate his sexual preferences. |
| 69 CE, April 15: | The Roman Emperor Otho (Marcus Salvius Otho), who literally rose to power on his knees before Nero, stabs himself in the heart. |
| 76 CE, Jan. 24: | Birth of Hadrian, who would become Emperor of Rome and lover of the beautiful Antinous (July 16 c.110) who drowned himself in the Nile at age 21, perhaps in as a self sacrifice to save the life of his lover and master. |
| 79 CE, Aug 24: | Vesuvius erupts, thereby preserving the homoerotic, and other sexually explicit, wall murals that would surely have been destroyed by later Christian "civilizations". |
| 188 CE, April 4: | Birth of the Roman Emperor Caracalla. Gay -- but not leather, he certainly set the standard for a bath house! |
| 3rd century CE: | Sebastian, a handsome young Roman Centurion is beloved by the emperor Diocletian, who turned against him when he embraces Christianity. He was stripped and tied to a tree and shot full of arrows by his fellow centurions. But he survives only to die many years later in a second martyrdom when he is stoned to death. St. Sebastian has been called the patron saint of gays, and the patron saint of SM. |
| 205, March 8: | Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who would become Heliogabalus, the boy Emperor of Rome. Blatantly homosexual he was married twice in one night choosing a well hung charioteer as his husband and a boy named Hierocles as his wife. He sent out his agents to round up the men with the largest penises in the Roman empire. Eventually his own guards shoved a sword up his ass and dumped him in a sewer. He was 17. |
| 342 CE: | The emperors Constantius and Constans, having inherited much of the empire of their father Constantine, call for "exquisite punishment" for homosexuality. |
| 390 CE: | The Roman Emperor Theodosius sets the punishment for homosexuality as death by burning. |
| 533 CE: | Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, decrees that homosexuality and blasphemy are equally to blame for famines, earthquakes, and pestilence. He orders castration for offenders. |
| 693 CE: | The Council of Toledo declares that "sodomists" have infiltrated the Church and order that clerics who lay with men should be degraded, exiled, and damned. |
| 809-813: | Reign of Abbasid Caliph Al-Amin of Baghdad, whose mother becomes dismayed by his preference for male eunuchs and packs his court with girls disguised as boys. These "ghulamiyyat" then become a fashion in many Moslem courts. |
| 955-964: | Reign of Pope John XII who loves both boys and muscular young men, he dies at the age of 26 from a stroke while having sex with one of his beautiful young men. |
1000 -1499
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1032 - 1044: | Reign of Pope Benedict IX, who has been called the Christian incarnation of Elagabalus. |
| 1106, Sept. 28: | Robert II, gay son of William the Conqueror is captured in battle and imprisoned for the rest of his life. |
| 1073: | All known copies of Sappho's lesbian love poems are burned by ecclesiastical authorities in Constantinople and Rome. |
| 1076: | Archbishop Lanfranc in England orders a priest's benediction on a marriage, but for another 100 years poor people continue to marry without benefit of clergy. |
| 1157, Sept. 8: | Birth of Richard Plantagenet, Richard Lion Heart, Richard I, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine. His lover for many years was Philip, King of France. He was one of the era's most widely respected generals. But he produced no heirs and eventually his loathsome brother John ascended to the British throne. The result was the Magna Carta. |
| 1210 - 1215: | The Council of Paris declares sodomy to be a capital offense. This marked the start of a militant anti-sodomy campaign by the Catholic Church. |
| 1252: | St. Thomas Aquinas begins his theological teaching. He declares that God created sex organs exclusively for reproduction; homosexual acts were thus "unnatural" and heretical. |
| ca. 1260: | The Legal School of Orleans orders that women found guilty of lesbian acts have their clitoris removed for the first offense; that they be further mutilated for a second offense; and burned at the stake for a third. |
| 1268, Oct. 29: | Frederick of Baden, Duke of Austria, willingly joins his condemned lover, 16 year old Conradin of Sicily, the last legitimate Hohenstaufen (Born March 24, 1252), and they are buried alive together. |
| 1292: | Europe's first known execution for sodomy takes place in Ghent. |
| 1307, Oct. 13: | Philip IV of France orders the arrest of all members of the Knights Templar. In the following years hundreds of Templars are imprisoned, tortured, and/or burned because of their supposed toleration as sinless of "acts against nature." |
| 1310, Oct. 12: | The Knights Templar are put on trial for heresy in France. Most recant the confessions made under torture, expecting pardon from and Pope Clement V, which is not granted. The French crown, and the church, thus gain control of the order's great wealth. |
| 1323: | In one of the earliest recorded trials for sodomy, Arnold of Verniolle is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a diet of bread and water. Despite stiff church prohibitions against sodomy, the trial record shows that Arnold had little trouble finding sex partners. |
| 1326: | Hugh le Despenser the younger, the second lover of Edward II of England, is hung, after his genitals have been cut off and burned before his eyes, upon the order of Edward's wife, Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. |
| 1327: | Edward II of England is murdered by the insertion of a red hot poker into his rectum. (birth April 25, 1284) |
| 1350: | Welsh poet Daffyd ap Gwilym produces explicit ballads like "The Penis" and "Deer Copulating" |
| 1373, Sept, 28: | Birth of the painter Caravaggio, whose short, violent life encompassed drinking, brawling, murder & sodomy. |
| 1431, May 30: | Birth of Joan of Arc, at Rouen, France. She led the French armies against the British invaders and won battle after battle. Then she was captured by the British in Normandy and condemned to be burned at the stake because she refused to stop wearing men's clothing. Abandoned by most of the French, her friend Gilles de Rais tried to rescue her but was too late. |
| 1440, Oct. 26: | Gilles de Rais, best friend of Joan of Arc, is executed in Nantes, France, for the torture and murder of hundreds of children. (born Jan. 10, 1404) |
| 1450-1453: | Pope Nicholas empowers the Spanish Inquisition to investigate and punish homosexuality. |
| 1464: | Pope Paul II elected to office. Like John XII he died while having sex, but the cause of his death was strangulation. |
| 1469, May 3: | Birth of Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher. The Prince is a masterwork of mind control. |
| 1471-1484: | Reign of Pope Sixtus IV. His reign is purchased by his lover Pietro Riario who runs the church, including the Spanish Inquisition, until his death in 1474. After that time Sixtus entertains himself by having muscular young men strip and fight to the death, the survivor becoming his bed partner. When Sixtus was ill his physicians prescribe mother's milk, the pope suggests that the juice of young men would suit him better. |
| 1474: | A Rooster is burned at the stake for "the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg". |
| 1475, March 6: | Birth of Michelangelo Buonarroti, (death 1564) Italian sculptor, painter and poet. Not a leatherman himself but certainly gay. And where would we be without his David to become, among other things, FeBe's logo, and his wrestlers in a 69 of testicle torture! |
| ca. 1480: | Pico of Mirandola in "Against the Astrologists", describes a male acquaintance who is sexually excited by being whipped before sex. This is the first known case history of a masochist. |
| 1494: | Christopher Columbus's physician on his second voyage to the new world, wrote that the behavior of the natives was, "Detestable! Nauseating! Disgusting!" It was common practice among these Carib tribes to castrate boys captured from enemy villages and keep them as lovers until they were eighteen, then they were killed and eaten. |
1500 - 1599 CE
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1500's: | Elena de Cespedes, a Spanish woman who lived as a man and married a woman, is discovered and immolated. |
| 1513: | Balboa, while exploring what is now Panama described homosexual activities among the natives he witnessed as "Abominable". He threw 40 of the offenders to his dogs. |
| 1520, June 30: | Inca Emperor Montezuma II dies at Tenochtitlan, Mexico. He is know to have cannibalized the boys he sodomized. |
| 1526: | A Spanish historian wrote that Carib men also had lovers that they did not intend to smother in butter and spices. These lovers were distinguished by wearing "naguas" or short skirts and jewelry their lovers had given them. |
| 1530: | In an Inca town in northern Peru, shortly after being conquered by the Spanish, there were fifteen women for every man, the men had been burned for suspected homosexual activities. By 1580 the area was still known for its gay activity. |
| 1533: | The "buggery" law is passed in England decreeing a penalty of death. This is the first time the offense is covered under civil, rather than church, law. |
| 1541: | The birth of the painter El Greco (death 1614) "His men are martyrs or conquerors; in their gaunt visages he traces the weariness and the final exhaustion of the body in surrendering to the mystical vision, or the savage meditation of those entrusted with the flagellation of Heretics." |
| 1550 - 1555: | Reign of Pope Julius III who, upon election as Pope, made his 17 year old lover a member of the College of Cardinals, and also appointed him Secretary of State. His orgies with teenage Cardinals were common knowledge. Most were horrified but the Archbishop of Benevento wrote a book, In Praise of Sodomy, dedicated to the pope. |
| 1551, Sept. 19: | Birth of Henri III, King of France. In the final years of his reign (he died at 37) he surrounded himself with handsome young men and abandoned himself to hedonistic joys. He took particular delight in flogging the backs of penitents marching in holy procession. |
| 1563: | The Roman Catholic council of Trent concludes that sex is bad and denounces "paintings calculated to excite lust." Pope Paul IV has clothes painted onto the naked figures in Michelangelo's painting, Last Judgement, in the Sistine Chapel. |
| 1564, Feb 26: | Birth of English playwright Christopher Marlowe. "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools." |
| 1570's: | Rome: Montaigne reports that at the Church of St. John, Catholic priests perform same sex marriages. A contemporary historian reports that same sex couples married in St. John's are burned in the city square. |
| 1576: | Brazil: Spanish explorers report that some native women "give up all duties of women and imitate men...Each has a woman to serve her, to whom she says she is married, and they treat each other and speak with each other as man and wife." |
| 1580, April 1: | The Netherlands: Civil Marriage is first established. |
| 1583: | The Third Provincial Council of Lima, in Peru, tells natives that "sodomy whether with another man, or with a boy , or a beast ...carries the death penalty, ...and the reason God has allowed that you should be so afflicted and vexed by other nations is because of this vice that your ancestors had and many of you still have." |
| 1585: | In one of the earliest recorded cases of masochism, Sister Mary Magdalene de Pazzi begs other nuns to tie her up and hurl hot wax at her. She also made a novice at the convent thrash her. |
| 1590: | In "Lectiones antique" Ludovicus Caelius Rhodiginus describes a man who needs to be whipped to have an erection. |
1600-1699
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1600, March 18: | Fourteen year old Catalan de Erauso escapes from a Basque convent then goes on to serve in the Spanish army dressed as a man. In 1620 the Pope gives permission for her to continue to dress in men's clothing. |
| 1602, July 6: | birth of Jerome Duquesnoy in Brussels Belgium, The eminent sculptor was working on projects at the cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent when he was arrested for sodomy with two acolytes of the church who had served as his models. He was strangled and then burned at the stake. |
| 1610: | The Virginia Colony passes the New World's first sodomy law, decreeing the penalty of death for offenders. |
| 1611, July 27: | Birth of Murad IV, Sultan of Turkey. His name was synonymous with cruelty, torture and unspeakable horror. His reign was bloody, and the armless, legless, tongueless victims of his tyranny numerous. |
| 1619: | Virginia: The first slaves are brought to North America. Quaker John Woolman later notes that despite their not being allowed legal marriage, "Negroes marry after their own way." |
| 1624: | Richard Cornish of the Virginia Colony is tried and hanged for sodomy. He is the first person in America known to be convicted of this offense. |
| 1624 - 1653: | The rule of Nzinga as King of Angola, this female to male cross dresser fought and won many battles against the Portuguese army. |
| 1625, Feb. 7: | In Virginia Thomas Hatch is sentenced to a whipping, the loss of one ear, and seven years of servitude, for daring to speak against the execution of a man for the crime of buggery. |
| 1631: | Mervyn Touchet, the Earl of Castlehaven, is put on trial for sodomy. He is found guilty and beheaded. |
| 1631: | Rembrandt sells rude etchings, thought to be of his wife pissing. |
| 1638: | Massachusetts orders every town to "dispose of all single persons." In Connecticut, bachelors are taxed 20 shillings a week. |
| 1639: | The German doctor Johann Heinrich Meibom describes the sexual excitement of some men when whipped in De usu flagrorum. He reasons that this is because the sperm fluid in the kidneys is heated by whipping and then descends to the testicles. Variations on this theory will dominate the thinking on SM until the 19th century. |
| 1641-42: | The Massachusetts Bay Colony incorporates the language of Leviticus 20:13 into it's laws. Other New England colonies soon follow suit. |
| 1649: | Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon are charged with "lewd behavior each with other upon a bed" in Plymouth MA. Charges against Hammon are dropped, but Norman is convicted and has to make a public confession. She is the first woman in America know to be convicted of lesbian activity. |
| 1644, April 10: | Birth of John Wilmot, later Earl of Rochester, British writer. His poetry
extols the joys of every possible type of human coupling. |
| 1654: | Execution of Jerome Duquesnoy (born 1602), court sculptor of Flanders. he is found
guilty of sodomy with two church acolytes who had served as his models, strangled and
burned at the stake. His brother, Francois, also a sculptor, created Brussels' famous
Pissing Boy fountain. |
| 1655: | The colony of New Haven expands its definition of sodomy - a capital offense - to include sexual relations between women. |
| 1659: | In France, by Royal decree, secret marriages and abductions are summarily abolished. |
| 1661: | In New England, the first Colonial divorce. Massachusetts averages one a year until
1760. |
| 1661 - 1750: | All the Southern colonies, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania pass laws
prohibiting interracial sex and marriage. |
| 1662-1723: | The reign of Emperor Kang Xi, who first took steps to prohibit consensual
homosexuality in China. |
| 1677: | Using the newly invented microscope, Dutch researchers Leeuwenhoek and Ham observe
human sperm for the first time. |
| 1681: | The young Count de Vermandois, the son of Louis XIV of France by Louise de La
Valliere, applies for admission to a secret fraternity of homosexuals active, but
underground, in the French Court. Because the young count is so indiscreet in his
activities, his father discovers his orientation, and the existence of the fraternity.
Louis has his son whipped in his presence and then exiles him. |
| 1694: | First mention of the Cerne Abbas Giant, a huge chalk drawing on the side of a hill
near Dorchester, England. The naked giant with club and erect phallus is supposedly
prehistoric. But why was it not noticed until now? Some suspect a 17th Century hoax
designed to annoy the Puritans. |
| 1694, Nov 21: | Birth of Francois Marie Arouet, better known as the French
philosopher/writer Voltaire. He once ended a letter to a male friend, "I kiss your
rod." Should we consider Candide a masochist? |
| 1698: | Kristian Franz Paullini confirms Meibom's theory in Flagellum salutis, but claims that blood is warmed by whipping, which then excites the sperms in the testicles. |
1700 - 1799 CE
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1700's: | In the Prussian state of Uuerttemburg, cripples and blind persons are not
permitted to marry. |
| 1712, June 28: | Birth of Jean Jacques Rousseau (death July 2, 1778). By his own reports, except for one relationship, the artist was a lifelong unfulfilled masochist, dating from a school spanking when he was 11. In one affair, he had a Mistress who dominated him thoroughly, but even she refused to re-enact his much desired spanking. |
| 1720: | Anne Bonney and Mary Read, partners who dressed as men and sailed the seas are tried
for Piracy. |
| 1730, Sept. 17: | Birth of Baron Freidrich von Steuben, aid to Frederick the Great, who was in charge of training the Prussian army until there were objections to "indecent liberties" with young men. He then offers his services to the Continental Army in America and joins Washington at Valley Forge. There he organizes and disciplines the men into a powerful striking force. When he retires he adopts two handsome young men to become his heirs, and he probably continues to train and discipline them. |
| 1730, Nov. 6: | The future Frederick the Great of Prussia, 18, (born Jan. 24, 1712) is
forced by his father to watch the torture and beheading of his lover, Lt. Hans Hermann von
Katte, after the two of them were caught trying to run away together. Later as king, on
learning that a particularly well-endowed soldier had been arrested for "bestiality
with his horse," he is reputed to have replied, "Fool -- don't put him in irons;
put him in the infantry." |
| 1730-31: | Authorities announce the discovery of an extensive homosexual network in Amsterdam. Three hundred prosecutions resulted and 70 people, including boys as young as 14, were executed. |
| 1740, June 2: | the Birth of the Marquis de Sade. |
| 1740: | China's first sodomy laws are enacted by Manchu Qing regime, which outlaws male homosexuality. |
| 1749: | Publication of Fanny Hill, by John Cleland. The novel about a London prostitute is
immediately suppressed, but it has enjoyed enormous popularity for more than two
centuries. |
| 1749, Jan. 29: | Birth of King Christian VII of Denmark, whose physician assigned him a sadistic male lover who beat him regularly. |
| 1753, Sept 20: | Birth of Tippu Sahib, the last maharajah of Mysore, who spends his life resisting British designs on India. The "Tiger of Mysore" demonstrates his feelings for the British by personally supervising the gang rape of each captured soldier. |
| 1753, Oct. 18: | Birth of Jean Jaczues Regis de Cambaceres in France. Under Napoleon he
became the primary architect of the Napoleonic Code. He was discreet, but not secretive,
about his homosexuality and it was through his influence that the Napoleonic Code, and
many later laws based upon it, legalized private consenting homosexual acts between
adults. (died: Mar. 8, 1824) |
| 1754, Sept 9: | Birth of William Bligh, later to become renowned as Captain of H.M.S.
Bounty. He survived the mutiny and the long voyage in an open boat, while all of the
mutineers perished on Pitcairn Island. And he certainly knew how to have a man flogged! |
| 1755, Sept. 4: | Birth of Hans Axel, Count von Fersen, in Stockholm Sweden. General, Statesmen, and lover of three different Swedish kings. The reason for his horrible death has never been satisfactorily explained. A savage mob tore him to pieces in the streets of Stockholm as police looked on and did nothing. He had been beaten with canes and umbrellas and then kicked to death. |
| 1758, May 6: | Birth of Francois de Robespierre, a leader of the French revolution, he led
in sending many of the nobility, and their supporters, to the torture chambers, and to the
guillotine. He ended up there himself. |
| 1763, Oct. 29: | By order of the King of France, the Marquis de Sade is committed to
Vincennes fortress for excesses committed in a brothel which he has been frequenting for a
month. |
| 1768, Apr. 3: | On Easter Sunday, at about nine o'clock in the morning The Marquis de Sade
accosts Rose Keller, she accompanies Sade in a cab to Arcueil. There, in his rented
cottage, he orders her to undress, threatens her with a knife, and flogs her. |
| 1772, Sept. 3: | Verdict: The Marquis de Sade, and his man servant Latour, are found guilty.
The former of crimes of poisoning and sodomy, and the latter of the crime of sodomy, and
are condemned to expiate their crimes at the cathedral porch before being taken to the
Place Saint-Louis "for the said Sade to be decapitated.. and the said Latour to be hanged
by the neck and strangled... then the body of the said Sade and that of the said Latour to
be burned and their ashes strewn to the wind." On Sept 12 Sade and Latour are executed in
effigy on the Place des Precheurs, in Aix. |
| 1775, July 9: | Birth of Matthew Gregory "Monk" Lewis in London. A master at writing the silly, overripe 18th Century Gothic romance novels that are still fun to read. In his Ambrosio, or the Monk (1795) Ambrosio is seduced by a woman driven to blind nymphomania by demons, who enters the monastery and Ambrosio's bed disguised as a boy. His sins are found out and he is tortured by the Inquisition, sentenced to death, and bargains with the Devil, who destroys him. |
| 1776, Jan. 17: | M. Trillet comes to La Coste to claim his daughter, who is known in the
chateau as Justine. During an argument with the Marquis de Sade, Trillet fires a pistol
shot at him almost point blank, but misses. He runs off to the La Coste township where he
babbles about what has happened. Later Catherine (aka Justine) sends someone to find her
father, who returns to the chateau. Here she tries to calm him but Trillet, who has
brought four other men back with him, flies into another rage and fires a second shot into
a courtyard where he thinks Sade to be. All five men then flee. |
| 1776, Feb. 13: | The Marquis de Sade is arrested by inspector Marais at the Hotel de
Danemark, on the rue Jacob and taken to Vincennes fortress where, at 9:30 that night, he
is formally entered as a prisoner. |
| 1776, April 18: | In a letter from the Marquis de Sade to his wife: "I am in a tower closed
in by nineteen iron doors, with light reaching me only through two little windows, each
with a score of iron bars." He complains that in over the two months he has been in
prison he has been allowed only five walks of one hour each, "in a sort of tomb about
forty feet square surrounded by walls more than fifty feet high." |
| 1776, Sept. 7: | After winning a trial, and escaping from authorities, the Marquis de Sade
is again incarcerated at Vincennes prison. |
| 1778, March 10: | Lt. F. G. Enslin is drummed out of the Continental Army for
"attempting to commit sodomy with J. Monhart, a soldier." |
| 1780's: | In the United States, colonial laws become state constitutions. Bigamy is
prohibited, the marriage of a lunatic is void, and age requirements are set. Marriages can
be annulled for impotence and blood relations. |
| 1782, July 12: | The Marquis de Sade completes the manuscript of his "Dialogue between a
Priest and a Dying Man". |
| 1784, Feb. 29: | The Marquis de Sade is transferred from the Vincennes prison to the
Bastille. |
| 1785: | The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue includes the phrase "gentlemen of the
back door" as a slang term for gay men. |
| 1785, Oct. 22: | The Marquis de Sade begins the final revision of his draft of a major
work: The 120 Days of Sodom or The School for Libertines. |
| 1788: | The French doctor Francois Amedee Doppet confirms Meibom and Paullini's theory. He expands it by pointing out that women always have warm vaginas after whipping. At the end of his article "Das Beisseln und sein Auswirkunauf den Geschlechtstrieb" he gives safety tips for flagellants. This is the first known SM safety text! |
| 1788, Mar. 1: | The Marquis de Sade begins work on his short novel Eugenie de Franval, which
he completes in six days. |
| 1789, July 2: | The Bastille logbook notes that "The Count de Sade shouted several times
from the window of the Bastille that the prisoners were being slaughtered and that the
people should come to liberate them." |
| 1789, July 4: | At 1:00 AM, as a result of a report made to Lord de Villedeuil on the
Marquis de Sade's conduct on July 2, he is transferred to Charenton Asylum by Inspector
Quidor. |
| 1789, July 14: | The Bastille is stormed and the Marquis de Sade's cell is sacked. His
furniture, his suites, linen, his library and most important, his manuscripts are "burned,
pillaged, torn up and carried off." |
| 1790, Apr. 2: | de Sade is released from Charenton Asylum. |
| 1791: | Justine by the Marquis de Sade (1740-1841) is first published in France. |
| 1791, Oct. 22: | First performance at the Theatre Moliere of Sade's Le Comte Oxtiern ou les
effets du libertinage. A second performance occurs two weeks later which gives rise to a
disturbance and causes Sade to suspend further performances. |
| 1792: | Civil marriage is established after the revolution in France. |
| 1794: | Prussia becomes the first German state to abolish the death penalty for
homosexuality (which had been in effect since 1532), and replace it with flogging and
imprisonment. |
1800 - 1849 CE
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1800's: | in Washington DC, We'wha, a two-spirit leader and representative for the Native
American Zuni tribe, is married to a man. |
| 1801, March 6: | Sade and his publisher, Nicolas Masse, are arrested. Police searches find
manuscripts and printed works, including Juliette and La Nouvelle Justine and a tapestry depicting "the most obscene subjects, most of which were drawn from the infamous novel Justine." |
| 1801, April 2: | The Minister of Police decides that a "trial would cause too much of a
scandal which an exemplary punishment would still not make worthwhile" So de Sade is
"placed" in Sainte-Pelagie prison as "administrative punishment" for being the author of "that infamous novel Justine" and of that "still more terrible work Juliette." |
| 1805: | Publication of Ein Jahr in Arkadien (A Year in Arcadia), by Herzog August von Sachsen Gotha, the first homoerotic book in the German Language. |
| 1809: | New York: In Genton vs. Reed, the state Supreme Court recognizes common-law marriage,
which won't be declared void until 1901. |
| 1809, Mar. 31: | Birth of Edward Fitzgerald, English writer who cruised the Suffolk docks "looking for some fellow to accost me and fill a very vacant place in my heart." |
| 1809, Dec. 29: | Birth of William Gladsone (death May 19, 1898) The four time Prime Minister of England was dedicated to self flagellation both to punish himself for impure thoughts and to achieve a pleasure from the act, which he then repented. |
| 1810: | The Napoleonic Code is instituted in France. It eliminates all laws forbidding homosexuality. |
| 1810: | The mother of a schoolgirl accuses Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, mistresses at a
boarding school for girls, of "improper and criminal conduct" with each other, The British courts debate whether a sexual relationship between women was even possible. Lillian
Hellman used his plot 120 years later as the basis for her play The Children's Hour. |
| 1813, April 28: | Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, who lead the defense of Moscow against Napoleon,
dies of a heart attack while having sex with a soldier. |
| 1814, Sept 13: | On this day Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner."
This deserves a healthy "so what?" from most readers of this list. But Key set
his flag waving poem to music originally titled "Anacreon In Heaven". The
Anacreonitics, who delighted in copying the Greek poet's style, seemed to miss the
subject, which was largely about boys he diddled. OK, whatever the etymology the anthem is
unsingable. |
| 1814, Dec. 2: | Death, at Charenton Asylum of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, the
Marquis. |
| 1820, May 12: | Birth of Florence Nightingale, who is alleged to have said, "I have lived
and slept in the same bed with English Countesses and Prussian farm women...No woman has
excited passion among women more than I have." |
| 1821, Nov. 11: | Birth of Feodor Dostoeovski (death Feb. 9, 1881). The writer's letters to
his beloved Anna are peppered with direct references to his fetish for her feet. His
contemporary, Turgenev, called him "the Russian Marquis de Sade," perhaps suggesting more than the Anna letters reveal. |
| 1824, Nov. 6: | In France the Marquis Astolphe de Custine is sadistically gang-raped by a
group of soldiers with whom he had made an assignation. |
| 1825, Aug. 28: | Birth of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, German sexologist and activist |
| 1826: | Karl Ernst von Baer discovers the human ovum. |
| 1828: | The English Parliament closes a loophole in its definition of the capital crime of buggery. It would no longer be necessary to demonstrate "The actual Emission of Seed" to convict someone of buggery or rape. |
| 1828: | First publication, in Leipzig, Germany, of the Memoirs of Casanova. |
| 1830: | Publication in France of the two volume work La Marquise de Gange, of which de Sade
is the anonymous author. |
| 1833, Jan 28: | The birth of Charles George "Chinese" Gordon, military hero of Imperial Britain and martyr at Khartoum. He was fond of picking up street urchins, bathing them, feeding them and mending their clothes with his very own needle and thread." |
| 1834 - 36: | Heinrich Hoessli, a Swiss milliner, publishes his two volume set Eros: On the
Love of Men, in German. It collected all the examples he could find of homosexual love in ages past -- Greek, Roman, and Persian love poems and manuscripts - and was one of the first books in modern times to give a positive view of homosexuality. |
| 1835, June 15: | Birth of Adah Isaacs Menken (death Aug. 25 1868). This most famed sexpot of the Victorian age was the star of "Mazeppa." She flashed apparent nudity in the face of Emperor Franz Josef -- he liked it. She was also the lover in reality, or publicly held fantasy, of many famous men including numerous crowned heads and chiefs of government. She was once paid by Dante Gabriel Rosetti to spend the night with poet Charles Swinburne, giving him the flogging he wanted, possibly in an attempt on Rosetti's part to convince the poet that women were desirable sex partners. |
| 1836: | Death of Threse Berkeley who supervised a flagellant brothel at 28 Charlotte St, London. Ms. Berkeley is the inventor of the Berkley bench/horse, a specialized piece of furniture for flogging and bondage. |
| 1836: | The last execution for homosexuality takes place in Britain, although the death penalty for homosexuals will remain on the books until 1861. |
| 1836, Jan 27: | Birth of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs. The man who put
the "M" in SM. |
| 1837, April 5: | Birth of British poet Charles Algernon Swinburne who wrote many lines in
praise of switches on asses. |
| 1840, Aug. 14: | Birth of German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in Mannheim, Germany |
| 1843: | Massachussetts repeals its 138 year old anti-miscegenation law. |
| 1843: | Hungarian physician Heinrich Kaan publishes his report named Psychopathias sexualis, reinterpreting sins of the flesh as psychological disorders. The theological terms "deviation", "aberration", and "perversion" are introduced into medicine. |
| 1844: | In The Queen vs. Millis, common law marriages are declared illegal in England. |
| 1844, March 30: | Birth of Paul Verlaine, poet and lover of poet Arthur Rimbaud (born Oct 20, 1854). He was imprisoned for two years after shooting his lover. He wrote "Sonnet to an Asshole" which begins "Dark and wrinkled like a deep pink, / It breathes, humbly nestled among the moss / Still wet with love..." |
| 1844, July 25: | Birth of Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia. The great American artist specialized in painting muscular, nude male models, nude male athletes and nude male bathers. |
| 1844, Aug. 29: | Birth of Edward Carpenter, the great English "sexual emancipator." Believing the effeminacy of "Uranians" a myth, he affected a form of macho dress, as did his working-class lover George Merrill, that make them both look, almost a century later, awfully contemporary. |
| 1844, Oct. 15: | The birth of Friedrich Nietzche. (death Aug. 25 1900). The philosopher was not an ardent of SM, but listed among the four women in his life one married woman whom he flogged during sex and who, dressed as a man, beat him senseless before another sexual encounter. Also, a photo of Nietzche shows him as one of two gentlemen horses "pulling" a cart on which Lou Andreas-Salome (not "the" married woman) crouches with a knotted whip raised. |
| 1846, Feb. 20: | New York City policeman Edward McCosker is dismissed for "indecently
feeling the privates" of a male passerby while on duty. |
1850 - 1899 CE
| Time | Event |
|---|
| 1854, Feb. 16: | birth of English writer Horatio Forbes Brown. When he died in 1926 his executors burned most of his unpublished works, attempting to hide his taste for sailors, footmen and other strapping members of the lower orders. One of his surviving poems depicts a boring society musicale in which every stanza ends with the line, "But I liked their footman John the best." |
| 1856, May 6: | Birth of Sigmund Freud in Freiberg, Austria. |
| 1857: | French physician B. A. Borel champions the concept of physical and mental &q | |
