The 18th and 19th Centuries

“The Eighteenth Century”

Sometime in this century, the glasses presented to James Kirk by Doctor McCoy in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” were manufactured in North America, as we find out when Kirk pawns them in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”.
Comment: This is also a joke: if Kirk takes them back to the 20th century for McCoy to buy in the 23rd, were they ever made at all?

The microscope in Janeway’s quarters is around six hundred years old, according to VOY “Counterpoint”, placing its manufacture sometime in the eighteenth century.

The best guess as to when the traditional French children’s song “Auprès de ma blonde” was composed. Captain Picard sings it in TNG “Final Mission” and TNG “Family”.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Saturday 31st March, 1685 to Tuesday 28th July, 1750
Rasmussen lists him as a “blind genius” in TNG “A Matter of Time”. Data is listening to his “Brandenburg Concerto Number Three” completed in 1721 in the same episode. The same piece also appears in TNG “Lessons”.

House of Hanover
Sunday 12th (1st OS) August, 1714 to Tuesday 22nd January, 1901
Riva uses the haemophilia in this family as an example of genetic variation in a ruling house in TNG “Loud as a Whisper”.
Comment: In fact, Queen Victoria was the culprit. Her ancestors never suffered from or transmitted the condition, except possibly her father, who is the most likely source of the defective gene. A series of dynastic marriages then spread the condition through the royal courts of Europe. I think the House of Hapsburg is a much better example of royal inbreeding, which is presumably what the story is tiptoeing around.

Domenico Scarlatti
Friday 26th October, 1685 to Saturday 23rd July, 1757
Trelane plays his “Sonata in C Major, K.159” in TOS “The Squire of Gothos”. With especial thanks to the dedicated researchers at Memory Alpha.

David Hartley
Thursday 10th September (30th August OS), 1705 to Thursday 25th August, 1757
Q quotes him in TNG “Hide and Q”: “Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays”.
Comment: I’m not entirely sure that the quote is correctly attributed, but Q is omnipotent, so what do I know?

Approximately 1750

Sometime between the 17th and 19th centuries a mixed group of First Nations North Americans are taken to a place of safety by a mysterious group of aliens called the Preservers, as seen in TOS “The Paradise Syndrome”. The exact date is anyone’s guess, but the fact that an “endangered” culture is being rescued and that some of the tribes are supposedly from the eastern United States implies the colonial period. Mister Spock actually mentions “Navajo, Mohican and Delaware”, but it’s not clear whether that’s just the village under observation, or the whole planet. Given several centuries of settlement, the planet should be fairly widely settled, and the political arrangements are likely to have changed from the original Earth versions.

Before 1753

Tarquin is born, over 400 years before ENT “Exile”.

Monday 31st December, 1759
The first public performance of “Heart of Oak”, composed by Doctor William Boyce, with lyrics by David Garrick. It is still the official march of the Royal Navy. The “false Picard” treats everyone in Ten-Forward to the song in TNG “Allegiance”.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Tuesday 27th January, 1756 to Monday 5th December, 1791
Data is listening to the “Jupiter Symphony in C Major” composed in 1788 in TNG “A Matter of Time”. His composition “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” written in 1787 is played by several of Enterprise’s crew at the start of TNG “The Ensigns of Command”. It’s also a Mozart piece that Trip Tucker has playing in ENT “Cogenitor”.

Very roughly 1767

500 years before TOS “A Taste of Armageddon”, war breaks out between Eminiar VII and Vendikar.

HMS Enterprize
August 1774 to August 1807
Lifetime of the British 28-gun 6th-rate frigate. Captain Archer has a picture of a three-masted sailing ship on the wall of his ready room, and says it sailed “almost four hundred years ago” in ENT “United”.
Comment: I’m sure many people would like the ship to be the first USS Enterprise, or one of the other American sailing ships of that name, but I’m afraid those ships just weren’t that big. I admit I’m not a naval historian, but I just can’t match the descriptions of any of the other ships operating in the second half of the eighteenth century with the picture. Incidentally, I’m indebted to the research work done by Ronald Roden in History of the Vessel Enterprise for the basic information that led me to this identification. The picture is specifically identified as the USS Enterprise, operated by the Continental Navy from 1775 to Monday 7th July, 1777 in Mike & Denise Okuda’s On Board the U.S.S. Enterprise, published by Pocket Books in 2013. As I’ve already said, the picture looks nothing at all like the real ship; it’s far too big, and has one more mast than the USS Enterprise would have had.

American Rebellion (or Revolutionary War, if you insist)
Wednesday 19th April, 1775 to Wednesday 3rd September, 1783
The leader of the terrorists in TNG “The High Ground” mentions these events when he also likens himself to George Washington.

Thursday 4th July, 1776
The United States of America declare their independence from Britain.

Nathan Hale
Friday 6th June, 1755 to Sunday 22nd September, 1776
America’s first spy, who regretted only having one life to give for his country. The EMH mentions him in VOY “Basics, Part II”.

Antoine Lavoisier
Monday 26th August, 1743 to Thursday 8th May, 1794
A scientist and social reformer. He’s mentioned by Paul Stamets in DCY “Saints of Imperfection”.

Approximately 1780
The earliest documented version of the French nursery rhyme “Frère Jacques”. The rhyme itself may be quite considerably older. Captain Picard sings it in TNG “Disaster”.

Tuesday 13th March, 1781
The astronomer William Herschel first observes the planet Uranus. It’s the first time a planet of the Solar System is spotted that wasn’t known to the ancients.
Comment: Patriotically, Herschel temporarily named his discovery Georgium Sidus or “George’s Star” in honour of his patron, King George III. He initially thought he’d found a comet, and didn’t publish his discovery until Thursday 7th November, 1782.

Friday 21st November, 1783
The first manned flight is undertaken in France, using a hot-air balloon.

Monday 17th September, 1787
The constitution of the United States is adopted. It’s mentioned as a precedent by Samuel Cogley in TOS “Court Martial”; and who can forget TOS “The Omega Glory”?

William Bligh
Monday 9th September, 1754 to Sunday 7th December, 1817
He was cast adrift following a mutiny on HMS Bounty on Tuesday 28th April, 1789. Arronax is compared to Captain Bligh in VOY “Year of Hell, Part II”. Doctor McCoy christens their captured Klingon ship “HMS Bounty” in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”.

1794
First publication of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”. Charlie Evans forces Mister Spock to recite the opening lines: “Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, In the forests of the night” in TOS “Charlie X”.

Friday 4th May, 1798
Start of the Irish Rising. Although the main battles were over by the end of the year, it was not until February 1804 that the last armed resistance ceased.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wednesday 21st October, 1772 to Friday 25th July, 1834
In TNG “Hide and Q” Picard quotes part of: “Therefore, methinks, it must be in possession of a soul within us that makes the difference… Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, will, absolute truth; of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite”, which comes from Coleridge’s Table-Talk.

Napoleon
Tuesday 15th August, 1769 to Saturday 5th May, 1821
“Squire” Trelane finds him admirable in TOS “The Squire of Gothos”. Captain Kirk compares the “supermen” to Napoleon in TOS “Space Seed”, and he’s one of the heroic figures Marla McGivers paints in that story. He’s also one of the tyrants Spock lists at the end of TOS “Patterns of Force”. Garth also lists him in TOS “Whom Gods Destroy”. Data mentions Napoleon’s “passive lure” strategy at the Battle of Austerlitz (on Saturday 2nd December, 1805) in TNG “Booby Trap”.

“The Nineteenth Century”

Sometime this century, Captain Cray of the Royal Navy and his ship are reported missing, presumed lost, after a storm. Eight months later he arrives in England with his heavily damaged ship. The story is told in VOY “Year of Hell, Part I”. As far as I have been able to discover, it’s not based on real events.

“Yankee Traders” was a phrase used to describe American merchants operating the turn of the century. Data compares the Ferengi to them in TNG “The Last Outpost”.

Thursday January 1st, 1801
Piazzi discovers the dwarf planet Ceres.

1802
The “Moonlight Sonata”, Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2 is dedicated by Beethoven to his pupil, Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The tune is played in TNG “Lessons”.

The Napoleonic Wars
Wednesday 18th May, 1803 to Monday 20th November, 1815
A series of wars involving Europe, America and Asia. Q dresses everyone up for this era in TNG “Hide & Q”.

Horatio Hornblower
Thursday 4th July, 1776 to Monday 12th January, 1857
Strictly speaking, he’s a fictional character created by C.S. Forester, and included here because the Hornblower novels are often cited as setting the tone for “Star Trek”. The dates are taken from “The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower” by C. Northcote Parkinson. Jake Sisko’s writing bears a strange resemblance to a section of one of Forester’s Hornblower novels, as seen in one of the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” props.

Wednesday 11th July, 1804
Alexander Hamilton is shot in a duel with Aaron Burr, and dies the next day. Trelane claims to own pistols identical to those used on this occasion in TOS “The Squire of Gothos”.
Comment: Dialogue in this episode is quite clear that they are 900 light years from Earth, and Trelane’s house is filled with objects 900 years old. Insofar as Trelane’s Earth artifacts can be dated at all, it’s more like 460 years, according to my system and most other people’s.

Monday 21st October, 1805
Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Horatio Nelson. Picard mentions Nelson touring Victory the night before the battle in TNG “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”. In “Star Trek: Generations” he ups the ante by saying he had an ancestor who fought in the battle. He doesn’t specify on which side.

1806

462 years before TOS “The Omega Glory” (which I have in September 2268), Wu will have been born on Omega.
Comment: This graphically demonstrates that there’s something strange going on if Omega IV is a lost US-Chinese colony, especially since his dad’s over a thousand. Perhaps it’s all parallel development, or maybe one of those pesky time-warps is involved.

Mexican War of Independence
Sunday 16th September, 1810 to Thursday 27th September, 1821
Mentioned by Data in TNG “The High Ground” as an example of a successful terrorist campaign.

1811

Sullivan’s pub in the fictional holographic village of Fair Haven is supposedly established, according to the prop inn sign used in VOY “Fair Haven” and VOY “Spirit Folk”.

Lord Byron
Tuesday 22nd January, 1788 to Monday 19th April, 1824
Mister Spock paraphrases him in TOS “Wolf in the Fold” with his line: “The entity would be as a hungry wolf in that fold”. Byron’s poem “Hebrew Melodies” includes: “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold”. Mister Spock and/or Ambassador Kollos quotes Byron again in TOS “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”: “She walks in beauty like the night”. The EMH mentions him in VOY “Darkling”.

1812
The Brothers Grimm first published a version of the German folk tale “Rumpelstiltskin”. O’Brien is still using it to give Molly nightmares in DS9 “If Wishes Were Horses”.

John Keats

Saturday 31st October, 1795 to Friday 23rd February, 1821
DS9 “Muse” attributes his early death to the influence of an alien energy creature called Onaya, who inspired him in order to obtain sustenance. His “Ode to Psyche”, first published in 1819, is a gift given by Deanna Troi to William Riker, seen in TNG “Conundrum”.

1816
“The year without a summer.” An enormous volcanic eruption throws so much dust into the atmosphere that the sunlight is attenuated. It is the last famine to affect the whole of Europe.

1820
“Prometheus Unbound” is a play by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published this year. Picard slightly misquotes “All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil” as “All spirits are enslaved that serve things evil” in TNG “Skin of Evil”.

Tuesday 23rd December, 1823
The poem “The Night Before Christmas” is published anonymously. Captain Archer mentions it in ENT “A Night in Sickbay”.

Friday 7th May, 1824
First public performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Data is listening to the symphony in TNG “A Matter of Time”.

Tuesday 27th September, 1825
First passenger service on a modern steam railway, the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

Approximately 8525 V.E.; around 1825

After almost 15 centuries, the Vulcans begin interstellar flights again. ENT “The Forge”.

Victor Hugo
Friday 26th February, 1802 to Friday 22nd May, 1885
According to DS9 “For the Uniform”, Michael Eddington’s favourite book is “Les Miserables”, Dax never managed to finish “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”.

Alexandre Dumas
Saturday 24th July, 1802 to Monday 5th December, 1870
Sulu is heavily influenced by his novel “The Three Musketeers” in TOS “The Naked Time”. In “Star Trek: Enterprise” Captain Archer’s dog Porthos is named after one of the musketeers: Porthos, Baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds. In PIC “Absolute Candor”, Picard presents Little Elnor with a copy of “The Three Musketeers”.

1830
The first publication of “Paul Clifford” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The first line: “It was a dark and stormy night;…” has become much more famous than the rest of the book. By complete coincidence, it shares the first line with that other famous novel “Hotel Royale” as seen in TNG “The Royale”.

Around 8530 V.E.; approximately 1830

The Romulans and Vulcans start a century-long war. Given that the war is supposed to have been started by Quinn, according to VOY “Death Wish”, it can’t be during the 300 years he’s imprisoned in a comet. The war could happen at the time the Romulans leave Vulcan, but it seems unlikely. The fifteen centuries Vulcans suspend space flight are also out, and so the war has to at least start sometime between around 1825 and 2070 and end a hundred years after that. I’ve put it between 1830 and 1930, because ENT “Carbon Creek” doesn’t seem to be happening in the middle of a war, and the Vulcans have to have reached a stalemate in their war with the Andorians by 1950. It could happen between 1960 and 2060, but I preferred to squeeze it in earlier. Some Vulcans refer to fighting the Andorians in “Star Trek: Enterprise” but there don’t seem to be any veterans of the Romulan war around.

Joseph Smith
Monday 23rd December, 1805 to Thursday 27th June, 1844
Founder of Mormonism.
Comment: No, I’m not going to call it “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”.

Frédéric Chopin
Thursday 1st March, 1810 to Wednesday 17th October, 1849
The Piano Trio in G Minor (Op. 8) is played in TNG “Lessons”. His Prelude in E minor (Op. 28 No. 4) is played in TNG “The Masterpiece Society”. 7of9 plays Nocturne Opus Posth. 72 No. 1 in E minor in VOY “Human Error”.
Comment: These musical references are all courtesy of the Memory Alpha wiki.

Hector Berlioz
Sunday 11th December, 1803 to Monday 8th March, 1869
He’s mentioned in “Star Trek: First Contact”.

Robert Schumann
Friday 8th June, 1810 to Tuesday 29th July, 1856
“Von fremden Ländern und Menschen” from “Kinderszenen”, Opus 15, No. 1 written in 1838, is played in VOY “Human Error”, and a holographic copy of Chakotay says it’s one of his favourites.

Siege of the Alamo
Tuesday 23rd February to Sunday 6th March, 1836
It’s a popular holodeck recreation in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” from DS9 “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night” onwards.

February 1837 to April 1839
Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist” is first published in instalments in “Bentley’s Miscellany”. Malcolm Reed quotes “Please sir, can I have some more?” in ENT “Minefield”.

Friday 7th April, 1837
First publication of “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson. It’s mentioned in DS9 “Melora”.

April 1838 to October 1839
First publication of “Nicholas Nickleby; or, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” by Charles Dickens. One of the augments is nicknamed “Smike” after a character in this novel in ENT “Cold Station 12”.

Phineas Taylor Barnum
Thursday 5th July, 1810 to Tuesday 7th April, 1891
Data erroneously attributes the saying “There’s a sucker born every minute” to him in TNG “Devil’s Due”. Exactly who did say it first remains undetermined.

1842
“Bentley’s Miscellany” publishes a poem about Shakespeare’s play of the same title: “The Merchant of Venice, a Legend of Italy” by Thomas Ingoldsby, the pen name of Richard Harris Barham. It contains the line “never say die” that remains a popular phrase long after the poem is forgotten. It’s mentioned by Sloan in DS9 “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”.

Tuesday 19th December, 1843
First publication of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Data takes the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a holodeck program at the start of TNG “Devil’s Due”.

Johann Strauss
Tuesday 25th October, 1825 to Saturday 3rd June, 1899
Trelane makes Uhura play his “Roses from the South” in TOS “The Squire of Gothos”. With especial thanks to the dedicated researchers at Memory Alpha. This would suggest that either Trelane’s knowledge of Earth extends to the year 1880, or more probably that Uhura provides the tune she plays. He’s also the composer of “An der schönen blauen Donau”, “The Blue Danube”. The EMH hides a message in the music in VOY “Renaissance Man”.

Edgar Allen Poe
Sunday 12th February, 1809 to Sunday 7th October, 1849
Charlie Evans forces Mister Spock to recite the opening line of Poe’s poem “The Raven”: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary” in TOS “Charlie X”.

1846

In the complete fantasy of the holodeck, a group of “spirit folk” visit the fictional Irish village of Kilmannin, according to VOY “Spirit Folk”.
Comment: In grim reality, the potato crop failed in Ireland, not for the first or last time, but this is regarded as the height of the Famine. Many people in Ireland starved to death; thousands of others emigrated to Britain and the United States during the nineteenth century, and later.

First publication of “The Minstrel Boy”, written by Thomas Moore (Friday 28th May, 1779 to Wednesday 25th February, 1852) to commemorate friends who had died in the Irish Rising of 1798. The song was established as having special meaning for Miles O’Brien in TNG “The Wounded” and featured several times in later stories in relation to his character.

1846 to 1856
The clipper ship Sea Witch was launched in New York in 1846 and set several records for transporting tea from China to America, before being wrecked off Cuba in 1856. An extremely inaccurate model of the ship was used as set dressing in VOY “11:59” and ENT “Horizon”.

Wednesday 23rd September, 1846
First observation and positive identification of the planet Neptune by Doctor Johann Galle in Berlin, based on calculations made earlier by Urbain Le Verrier.
Comment: The discovery of Neptune is a complicated story. It is the only planet in the Solar System discovered as a result of mathematical analysis, and the calculations were done twice, completely separately. John Couch Adams “discovered” the planet Neptune by analysing peculiarities in the orbit of the planet Uranus. There then followed a truly amazing tale of cliquishness, arrogance and downright incompetence that led to his calculations not being published, or acted on at all, for a year. Le Verrier did publish, his calculations were used to observe the planet, and he (in my opinion) deserves all the credit.

Saturday 16th October, 1847
First publication of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”. It’s one of the holo-program options holographic Janeway shows Dal and Jankom in PDY “Kobayashi”.

1850
Publication of “In Memoriam A.H.H.” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Picard quotes from Poem 27 in TNG “Ménage à Troi”: “When I have plucked the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again. It needs must wither. ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

It’s also the year “Camptown Races” was written, under the title “Gwine to Run All Night.” Doctor McCoy suggests it as a campfire song in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”. Given the nature of the lyrics, it’s probably a good thing they decided on “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” instead.

Approximately 1850

The Suliban homeworld becomes uninhabitable, as mentioned in ENT “Broken Bow” and 300 years before ENT “Detained”.

The Denobulans and Antarans finish their war, after the Denobulans have killed some 20 million Antarans, and conducted medical experiments on captives. 300 years before ENT “The Breach”.

Tuesday 11th March, 1851
The first public performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto”. Data’s listening to the opera in TNG “A Matter of Time”. The EMH also sings “La donna è mobile” in VOY “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”, and it’s mentioned in VOY “The Void”. The EMH is singing it at the start of VOY “Renaissance Man” too.

Saturday 18th October, 1851
First publication of “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. The story is quoted directly by Khan in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and the book is mentioned in VOY “Thirty Days”. It also features in “Star Trek: First Contact”.

Before 1852

Some Alvera trees are planted by the Kretassans outside their Hall of Diplomacy. The trees are still there over three centuries later and regarded as cultural treasures, ENT “A Night in Sickbay”.

Approximately 1852

A couple from Vega Reticuli are married, three hundred of their years before ENT “Two Days and Two Nights”. I’m assuming that their years are about the same as ours. The star Vega Reticuli is fictitious, so who knows?

Florence Nightingale
Friday 12th May, 1820 to Saturday 13th August, 1910
Harry Kim names his first command in her honour, VOY “Nightingale”.

Saturday 9th December, 1854
Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is first published. The actual charge commemorated in the poem was made on Wednesday 25th October, 1854. O’Brien and Bashir quote some of the poem in DS9 “Sacrifice of Angels”.

1855
The Thirtieth Annual Report of The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor publishes the “traditional” song “Pop Goes the Weasel!” with alternative, more wholesome lyrics. Data has a go at whistling it in TNG “Encounter at Farpoint”, and we get another chance to see him do it in TNG “Shades of Gray”.

Sunday 10th May, 1857 to Wednesday 1st September, 1858
The Indian Mutiny, or First War of Indian Independence.

Alfred Russel Wallace
Wednesday 8th January, 1823 to Friday 7th November, 1913
He gets roasted by Mark Twain for his anthropocentrism in TNG “Time’s Arrow”.

Saturday 30th April to Saturday 26th November, 1859
Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities” is first published in instalments in “All the Year Round”. Spock gives James Kirk a later edition of this book as a birthday present in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, and Ezri has loaned her copy to Julian Bashir in DS9 “Extreme Measures”.

Friday 2nd September, 1859
There was an enormous solar storm, so powerful that it actually shorted out telegraph lines and started fires in Europe and North America. Colourful aurorae were visible in much of the northern hemisphere, as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.

Abraham Lincoln
Thursday 19th January, 1809 to Saturday 15th April, 1865
A recreation of “Honest Abe” is one of the good guys in TOS “The Savage Curtain”. He’s mentioned in TNG “A Matter of Time”. The Gettysburg Address of Thursday 19th November, 1863 is mentioned in VOY “Memorial”. Doctor McCoy calls Gorkon “the last, best, hope for peace” in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”, paraphrasing Lincoln’s phrase “the last best hope of earth” in his address to the U.S. Congress on Monday 1st December, 1862.

American Civil War
Saturday 13th April, 1861 to Friday 26th May, 1865
It’s a stretch, but it forms the source for the visualisation of the Q Continuum in VOY “The Q and the Grey”.

بهاء الل, Bahá'u'lláh
Wednesday 12th November, 1817 to Sunday 29th May, 1892

Ulysses S. Grant
Saturday 27th April, 1822 to Thursday 23rd July, 1885
“Fake Lincoln” compares Kirk to Grant in TOS “The Savage Curtain”.

Tuesday 14th June, 1864

The Battle of Pine Mountain, which really did happen. According to VOY “Death Wish”, “Old Iron Boots” Colonel Thaddeus Riker commands the 102nd New York. He’s badly injured in the battle, but his life is saved by Quinn, thereby ensuring that a Riker is first officer on Enterprise. As far as I know, none of that’s real.

Approximately 1864

Aliens called the Scagarans abduct a group of settlers from the American West and take them to another planet as slaves. Within six months, Cooper Smith leads a successful human rebellion. The humans try to reconstruct the society they knew on Earth, and insist on making the Scagarans their slaves. According to ENT “North Star”, it’s nearly 40 years before the Wright brothers make their first heavier-than-air flight.

In VOY “The Measure of a Man” Admiral Nakamura claims that every vessel called Enterprise has been a legend for the last five centuries.

Friday 13th January, 1865
The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution is proposed by Congress in the United States. Following presidential approval on Wednesday 1st February, slavery is formally abolished throughout the country. It’s mentioned in ENT “Bound”.

Lewis Carroll
Friday 27th January, 1832 to Friday 14th January, 1898
The pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodson, who wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass”. The White Rabbit appears in TOS “Shore Leave” and again with the Queen of Hearts in TAS “Once Upon a Planet”, when Spock specifically mentions Amanda’s enthusiasm for the book and his own familiarity with the story of Alice. Kirk and Chekov talk about the Cheshire Cat in TOS “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, although Chekov thinks the cat was from Minsk. Some rather anachronistic quotes from Carroll’s works appear in TOS “Plato’s Stepchildren” and Picard quotes Alice: “Curiouser and curiouser” in TNG “The Royale”. In DCY “Context is for Kings” Michael Burnham lends a copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to Sylvia Tilly. She also says that Amanda used to read the book to her and Spock when they were little. This is explored in more detail in DCY “Brother” and DCY “Light and Shadows”.

Gregor Mendel
Saturday 20th July, 1822 to Sunday 6th January, 1884
Spock mentions him in TOS “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”.

Louis Pasteur
Friday 27th December, 1822 to Saturday 28th September, 1895
He’s mentioned in VOY “Fury”.

Before 1867

Over 400 years before TOS “Bread and Circuses”, the last war is fought on the “Roman Empire” planet 892-IV.

1867
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe are visited by Adam Renders.
Comment: The rediscovery of ruined cities in Central America, Asia and Africa by European explorers in the nineteenth century led to a lot of exciting adventure tales, and some rather less pleasant “scientific” theories that the local “primitives” couldn’t possibly have built them. I’m not aware of any case when proper archaeological investigation hasn’t confirmed that the ancestors of the people still living locally built the cities.

Monday 11th March, 1867
First performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos”. The EMH sings a selection from it in VOY “Virtuoso”.

Before 1868

Over 5 centuries before TNG “Power Play”, the disembodied minds of criminals from the planet Ux-Mal are imprisoned on the moon of Mab-Bu VI.

Johannes Brahms

Tuesday 7th May, 1833 to Saturday 3rd April, 1897
TOS “Requiem for Methuselah” makes it pretty obvious that Brahms is really supposed to be Flint. See also Flint: Immortal Genius, or Completely Barking Mad?

“Five Hundred Years Ago”

Captain Picard puts drumhead courts martial around now in TNG “The Drumhead”. He’s pretty much right, although it’s near the end of their use, rather than their first adoption.

The two moons of the planet Peliar Zel are colonised by the inhabitants of the planet. The two groups of colonists fall out almost immediately. TNG “The Host”.

1870
First publication of “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers”, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” by Jules Verne. Arronax is compared to Captain Nemo of the Nautilus in VOY “Year of Hell, Part II” and the novel itself is mentioned in VOY “Thirty Days”.

Before 1871

The Cardassian Union is formed, or at least the form of government it enjoys in the 24th century is established. It may well be the time when Tret Akleen of Ventani II, father of the Cardassian Empire comes to prominence. It’s over five centuries before DS9 “Defiant” and Tret Akleen’s from DS9 “Tears of the Prophets”.

Over 500 years before VOY “The Cloud” and VOY “Non Sequitur”, Sandrine’s family buys a waterfront bar in Marseilles.

Friday 10th November, 1871
Henry Morton Stanley met Dr Livingstone by Lake Tanganyika in Africa. Mister Spock paraphrases Stanley’s famous greeting in TOS “Whom Gods Destroy” as “Captain Kirk, I presume?” There’s also the title of DS9 “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?”, although there are no direct references in the story itself.

Heinrich Schliemann
Sunday 6th January, 1822 to Friday December 26, 1890
He’s mentioned in TNG “The Chase”.

Thurday 5th December, 1872
The ship Mary Celeste is found drifting in the Atlantic. No trace has ever been found of her crew.

1873 to 1892
The service life with the US Army of Samuel Colt’s “Peacemaker” or “Colt 45” revolver. Mark Twain’s turns up in TNG “Time’s Arrow”.
Comment: Data’s description of it is not very accurate, considering he’s a super-intelligent android.

Claude Monet
Saturday 14th November, 1840 to Sunday 5th December, 1926
Rasmussen cites him as one of several “blind geniuses” in TNG “A Matter of Time”.

1875
The song “I’ll Take You Home, Kathleen” was written by Thomas P. Westendorf. It features in TOS “The Naked Time”. Perhaps you might remember?

Georges Bizet
Thursday 25th October, 1838 to Thursday 3rd June, 1875
A composer whose best-known work is the opera “Carmen”. He’s mentioned in “Star Trek: First Contact”.

Sunday 25th and Monday 26th June, 1876
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, where George Custer met his death. Picard mentions the battle and Custer in TNG “The Defector”.

Mark Twain

Monday 30th November, 1835 to Thursday 21st April, 1910
Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote under the name “Mark Twain”. The man himself appears in TNG “Time’s Arrow” (Parts 1 & 2). Captain Picard paraphrases his famous comment “…the report of my death was an exaggeration” as “…any rumours of my brush with death are greatly exaggerated” in TNG “Samaritan Snare”.

1877
Percy French writes the poem “Abdul Abulbul Amir”. Lore sings some parts of it in TNG “Brothers”.

Saturday 25th May, 1878
The opening night of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera “HMS Pinafore”. Data, Worf and Picard treat us to a rendition of the song “A British Tar” from the show during “Star Trek: Insurrection”.

Approximately 1878

A heavily-fictionalised reconstruction of the town of Deadwood, Dakota Territory at this time is the setting for the “Wild West” holodeck program that doesn’t quite go as planned in TNG “A Fistful of Datas”.

Wednesday 31st December, 1879
The world première of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”. Beverly Crusher is trying to convince Geordi to take the part of Major-General Stanley at the beginning of TNG “Disaster”.

Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Thursday 7th May (OS 25th April), 1840 to Monday 6th November (OS 25th October), 1893
Janeway names him as a composer she likes to listen to once in a while in VOY “Counterpoint”.

Antonín Dvořák
Wednesday 8th September, 1841 to Sunday 1st May, 1904
Data is studying his compositions at the time of TNG “A Fistful of Datas”, with some unexpected side-effects.

1881
The first published version of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. It’s the song Kirk, Spock and McCoy just can’t help singing in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”.

The first book about Uncle Remus was published this year, written by Joel Chandler Harris. The “Briar Patch” features in “Star Trek: Insurrection”, and Riker mentions Br’er Rabbit, too.

Wednesday 26th October, 1881
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in Tombstone, Arizona; memorably though inaccurately recreated in TOS “Spectre of the Gun”.

Thursday 4th October, 1883
The Orient Express runs for the first time. It’s mentioned in TNG “Emergence”.

1884
First publication of the song “Oh My Darling Clementine”. The identity of the author is uncertain. The song is sung in VOY “Equinox, Part II”.

January 1886
Publication of “The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Even Balok is familiar with the story in TOS “The Corbomite Maneuver”.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Sunday 22nd May, 1859 to Monday 7th July, 1930
In March and April 1886 he wrote the first of sixty adventures of the great detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes features in TNG “Elementary, Dear Data”; and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” suggests that Spock is either descended from Conan Doyle, or that Holmes was real. I’ve chosen to keep him fictional, in keeping with the references in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.

September 1887
Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli makes the most detailed observations of the planet Mars up to that point, taking advantage of a powerful telescope and a favourable conjunction. As well as the Martian polar icecaps, Syrtis Major and the enormous volcano Olympus Mons, he is convinced he can see straight lines criss-crossing the planet. Although he thinks that they are a natural feature, he uses the Italian word “canali” to describe them, sparking speculation that they are “canals” built by Martians. The canals produce a lot of speculation from the deadly serious to the extremely fanciful over the next 78 years, before the first close-up photographs of the planet show that they don’t exist.

Friday 31st August to Friday 9th November, 1888

The five brutal murders usually attributed to “Jack the Ripper” are committed in London’s East End. There is a continuing debate about exactly how many women were murdered, the identity of the killer, or even whether there was a single killer at all. As far as TOS “Wolf in the Fold” is concerned all these killings, and many others, are the work of an evil energy being that feeds on fear.

1889
First publication of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). The book’s mentioned in VOY “Spirit Folk”. Samuel Clemens also mentions the book in TNG “Time’s Arrow, Part II”.

Lord Acton
Friday 10th January, 1834 to Thursday 19th June, 1902
He suggested that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The phrase is used with slight variations in TOS “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and TNG “Hide and Q”.

Wednesday 20th November, 1889
Première in Budapest of Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony Number 1”. Mentioned in VOY “Counterpoint”.

Saturday 30th November, 1889

Samuel Clemens owns a watch inscribed “To S.L.C., with love. 30 November, 1889”, but he breaks and then abandons it in a mysterious cavern under San Francisco, during TNG “Time’s Arrow”(Parts 1 & 2).

William James
Tuesday 11th January, 1842 to Friday 26th August, 1910
Picard gives Wesley one of his books on philosophy, and asks if he’s read it in TNG “Samaritan Snare”.

Vincent van Gogh
Wednesday 30th March, 1853 to Tuesday 29th July, 1890
Sisko mentions him in DS9 “Second Sight”. According to the computer in TNG “The Most Toys”, Kivas Fajo owns “De sterrennacht” (“The Starry Night”), van Gogh’s best-known work.

Friday 11th August, 1893

The “San Francisco Register” for this day is the paper that Data gets wrapped round some food; with an article in it announcing the literary reception he gate-crashes in TNG “Time’s Arrow”.

Sunday 13th August, 1893

This day’s “San Francisco Register”, proclaiming a cholera outbreak, is the newspaper Data finds in the street in TNG “Time’s Arrow”.

TNG “Time’s Arrow” (Parts 1 & 2)

Monday 14th August, 1893 to Sunday 3rd September, 1893

Estimated duration: 21 days.
Chronology: Assuming that time passes at the same rate at both ends of the time corridor, Data should arrive on Monday 14th August, 1893. The others then arrive on Saturday 19th August, 1893. They all return to the future (to coin a phrase) on Sunday 3rd September, 1893, with Picard being chased for the rent on Thursday and Friday. Picard himself may not leave until early on the 4th, but I’ve gone for the Sunday. The other part of this story happens in “2368”-“2369”, May-June 2369.
Continuity: Evidently, all the people involved in this incident decided to keep quiet about it afterwards. Guinan meets Picard for the first time, as far as she’s concerned. “The San Francisco Register” first appeared (in real life continuity) in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”.

1894
First publication of the folk song “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”. The EMH sings it in VOY “Virtuoso”.

Станисла́вский, Stanislavski
Saturday 17th (5th OS) January, 1863 to Sunday 7th August, 1938
Data lists him as an acting “mentor” in TNG “Devil’s Due”.

1895
First publication of “Captains Courageous” by Rudyard Kipling. The novel is mentioned in VOY “Thirty Days”.

Also the first publication of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”. The story’s mentioned in VOY “Spirit Folk”.

Late nineteenth century
The anonymous poem ”Star Light, Star Bright” is published in North America. Lenore recites it in TOS “The Conscience of the King”.

Sigmund Freud
Tuesday 6th May, 1856 to Saturday 23rd September, 1939
He’s mentioned in VOY “Concerning Flight”.

Saturday 1st February, 1896
Première of Puccini’s opera “La Bohème” in Turin. The EMH mentions the aria “O soave fanciulla” in VOY “The Swarm”.

1897
Edmond Rostand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac” is first performed. Various members of the Enterprise crew stage the English version of the play at the beginning of TNG “The Nth Degree”.

Friday 14th May, 1897
The first public performance of John Philip Sousa’s march “Stars and Stripes Forever”. The tune features in TNG “Evolution”.

Wednesday 26th May, 1897
First publication of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. It’s one of the holo-program options holographic Janeway shows Dal and Jankom in PDY “Kobayashi”.

1898
Publication of H.G. Wells’ novel “The War of the Worlds”. Sim reads the book in ENT “Similitude”, and establishes that “Trip” Tucker had it read to him as a child. H.G. Wells himself is mentioned by Daniels in ENT “Shockwave, Part II”.

1899
The poem “The Song of the Wandering Aengus” is published in the collection “The Wind in the Reeds” by William Butler Yeats. Captain Archer enjoyed listening to “The Song of the Wandering Aengus” when he was a child, as revealed in ENT “Rogue Planet”.

Harry Houdini
Tuesday 24th March, 1874 to Sunday 31st October, 1926
Captain Archer refers to him in ENT “Shadows of P’Jem”. “Trip” Tucker also mentions him in ENT “Observer Effect”.


The 1st to 17th Centuries
1901 to 1965

by StrauchiusStrauchius on 30 Nov 2010 16:27, last updated on 27 May 2022 10:37