Manzikert. The Seljuk sultan Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghribeg decisively beat the Byzantines and captured their emperor, Romanos IV Diogenes. The consequences for Byzantium were grave, leading to an economic crisis and the consolidation and expansion of Seljuk control over much of Anatolia.

Elizabeth Gaskell. Mrs Gaskell was the versatile author of everything from ghost stories and social satire to serious ‘industrial novels’. In 1832 she married William Gaskell, assistant minister of Manchester’s Cross Street Chapel. As a minister’s wife, she had a close-up view of many of the city’s social problems, which influenced her writing.

Egbert of Wessex. Egbert was Æthelwulf’s father. Æthelwulf’s progeny by his first wife, Osburh, also included three more kings of Wessex: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, who were later succeeded by their youngest brother, Alfred.

Nephritis. Bright was an early researcher into kidney disease and worked at Guy’s Hospital in the 1820s and 30s. He first described the disease’s symptoms in 1827. The term “Bright’s disease” is no longer used by the medical profession because historically it refers to a diverse range of kidney diseases.

‘Savrola’. All the others are by HG Wells, while ‘Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania’ was Winston Churchill’s only serious attempt at fiction. It tells the story of an uprising against a dictatorial government in a fictional central European state. Churchill started writing it during a long sea voyage and its commercial and critical reception was modest.

1320s. The battle of Old Byland took place on 14 October 1322; the lighthouse was destroyed in 1323; Marco Polo died in 1324 and David II became king in 1329.

Abraham ben Abraham. According to legend, his conversion to Judaism resulted in his being burned for apostasy [the abandonment or renunciation of a religious belief] by the Catholic authorities in 1749. All the others also burned to death, but by their own hands. Palach set himself alight in Prague in 1969 in protest at the Soviet invasion of his country. Thích Quảng Đức was a Buddhist monk who burned himself in Saigon in 1963. The self-immolation of Bouazizi in 2011 was a catalyst for the Tunisian uprising and the wider Arab Spring.