The Crystal Palace was a huge building of cast iron and plate glass, designed by Joseph Paxton, which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park in London. It was quickly built with prefabricated parts and showed off the industrial achievements of Britain and other nations. After the exhibition it was taken down and rebuilt on a larger scale at Sydenham Hill in south London, where it served as a venue for concerts, shows and exhibitions, with gardens that held the first life-size models of dinosaurs. The building was destroyed by a fire in 1936. Its name lives on in the area of Crystal Palace and in the football club Crystal Palace F.C.
Before and after
- 9 July 1850Death of Zachary Taylor
- 5 August 1850Birth of Guy de Maupassant
- 18 August 1850Death of Honoré de Balzac
- 13 November 1850Birth of Robert Louis Stevenson
- 1851Construction of The Crystal Palace
- 1851Fizeau experiment
- from 11 January 1851 to 1 August 1864Taiping Rebellion
- 1 February 1851Death of Mary Shelley
- 28 June 1851Discovery of 6P/d'Arrest
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1792Publication of Dream of the Red Chamber
- 18 September 1851Founding of The New York Times
- 1857Rise of Symbolism
- 1890Rise of Art Nouveau
- 28 December 1895The Lumiere brothers hold the first public film screening
- 1909Rise of Futurism
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.