By: HISTORY.com Editors

1924

Virginia Woolf buys a house in Bloomsbury

Published: November 13, 2009Last Updated: December 16, 2025

On January 9, 1924, Virginia Woolf and her husband buy a house at 52 Tavistock Square, in the Bloomsbury district of London near the British Museum. Woolf had been associated with the district since 1902, when she took a house in the area with her three siblings after their father’s death. She had remained in the neighborhood, becoming a central character of the “Bloomsbury Group,” a set of writers and thinkers including biographer Lytton Strachey and writer E.M. Forster.

Woolf, born in 1882, grew up surrounded by intellectuals. The Bloomsbury set embraced progressive intellectual ideas and sexual liberty. Woolf became a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and also took odd jobs to support herself until she inherited a comfortable income from an aunt.

Virginia married writer and social reformer Leonard Woolf in 1912. The couple established the Hogarth Press in their dining room several years later. In addition to Virginia Woolf’s later novels, the press also published T.S. Eliot and translations of Chekhov and Dostoevsky.

Woolf published her groundbreaking novel Mrs. Dalloway in 1925. Its stream-of-consciousness structure deeply influenced later writers. That same year, she fell in love with poet Vita Sackville-West, who was married to the bisexual diplomat and author Harold Nichols. The affair inspired Woolf’s most whimsical work, Orlando. Woolf wrote several more novels as well as social and literary criticism. However, she suffered from depression and mental illness all her life. In 1941, fearful for her own sanity and afraid of the coming world war, she filled her pockets with rocks and drowned herself.

The home at 52 Tavistock Square was destroyed by German bombing blitz of London during World War II.

How World War I Changed Literature

World War I altered the world for decades, and writers and poets reflected that shift in literature, novels and poetry.

By: Amanda Onion

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 9th

1493

Columbus mistakes manatees for mermaids

Explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, believes he spots three “mermaids." In reality they were manatees.

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1768

First modern circus is staged

On or about January 9, 1768, Englishman Philip Astley stages the first modern circus in London. Trick riders, acrobats, clowns, trained animals and other familiar components of the circus have existed throughout recorded history, but it was not until the late 18th century that the modern spectacle of the circus was born. Astley, a former […]

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1861

“Star of the West” is fired upon

On January 9, 1861, a Union merchant ship, the Star of the West, is fired upon as it tries to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This incident was the first time shots were exchanged between North and South, although it did not trigger the Civil War. When South Carolinians seceded […]

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1887

Record cold and snow decimates cattle herds

On one of the worst days of the “worst winter in the West,” nearly an inch of snow falls every hour for 16 hours, impeding the ability of already starving cattle to find food. The plains ranchers had seen hard winters before, but they had survived because their cattle had been well-fed going into the […]

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1913

Richard M. Nixon is born

Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th president of the United States, is born on January 9, 1913 in California. The son of Quaker parents, Nixon grew up in the southern California city of Yorba Linda. Early on he proved himself to be a stellar student, attending Whittier College and graduating from Duke University Law School with honors. Nixon […]

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1916

Bugatti brother dies by suicide

On January 9, 1916 Rembrandt Bugatti, a sculptor and younger brother of Italian auto designer and manufacturer Ettore Bugatti, dies by suicide at the age of 31. The Bugatti brothers were born in Milan, Italy—Ettore in 1881 and Rembrandt in 1884. They came from a creative family that included artists and architects. Their father, Carlo […]

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1916

Allies retreat from Gallipoli

On January 9, 1916, Allied forces complete their full retreat from the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, ending a disastrous invasion of the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli Campaign resulted in 250,000 Allied casualties and greatly discredited Allied military command. Roughly an equal number of Turks were killed or wounded. In early 1915, the […]

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1945

United States invades Luzon in Philippines

Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the American 6th Army land on the Lingayen Gulf of Luzon, another step in the capture of the Philippine Islands from the Japanese. The Japanese controlled the Philippines from May 1942, when the defeat of American forces led to General MacArthur’s departure and Gen. Jonathan Wainwright’s capture. But in October 1944, […]

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1952

President Truman warns of Cold War dangers

In his 1952 State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman warns Americans that they are “moving through a perilous time,” and calls for vigorous action to meet the communist threat. Though Truman’s popularity had nose-dived during the previous 18 months because of complaints about the way that he handled the Korean War, his […]

1972

Fire breaks out on former RMS Queen Elizabeth

On January 9, 1972, the ship Seawise University (formerly the RMS Queen Elizabeth) sinks in Hong Kong Harbor despite a massive firefighting effort over two days. The Queen Elizabeth, named after the wife of King George VI, was launched on September 27, 1938; at the time, it was the largest passenger steamship ever constructed. When […]

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1972

Los Angeles Lakers’ record winning streak ends

On January, 9, 1972, the longest winning streak in major professional sports is snapped at 33 games when the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 120-104. A 39-point performance by the Bucks’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hands the Lakers their first loss since October 31. Afterward, Lakers coach Bill Sharman kept the locker room closed for […]

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1976

Sylvester Stallone starts filming “Rocky”

The classic rags-to-riches story got a macho spin in the Oscar-winning Rocky, which was written by its star, Sylvester Stallone, and began filming on January 9, 1976. Stallone had his own rags-to-riches tale: Born in the gritty Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, he was a juvenile delinquent who was kicked out of a […]

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1978

Harvey Milk becomes the first openly gay person elected to public office in California

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, takes his place on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on January 9, 1978. The first and, for years, most visible openly gay politician in America, Milk was a longtime activist and pioneering leader of San Francisco’s LGBT community. After serving in […]

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1979

Pop luminaries gather at the U.N. for the Music for UNICEF concert

On January 9, 1979, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, a.k.a. UNICEF, stages a concert fundraiser featuring dozens of leading lights of late-’70s pop music. Designed to publicize the organization’s proclamation of 1979 as the “International Year of the Child” the event called attention to the poverty, malnutrition and lack of access to quality education affecting […]

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1984

One of the “Hillside Stranglers” sentenced to life

Angelo Buono, one of the Hillside Stranglers, is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the rape, torture, and murder of 10 young women in Los Angeles. Buono’s cousin and partner in crime, Kenneth Bianchi, testified against Buono to escape the death penalty. Buono, a successful auto upholsterer, and Bianchi began their serial […]

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2001

Apple launches iTunes, revolutionizing how people consume music

On January 9, 2001, Apple launches iTunes, a media player that revolutionized the way people consumed digital media. Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin, two former Apple employees, developed an MP3 player called SoundJam MP in the late 1990s. In 2000, Apple re-hired them and their partner, Dave Heller, to work on a similar player that […]

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2007

Steve Jobs debuts the iPhone

On January 9, 2007, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone—a touchscreen mobile phone with an iPod, camera and Web-browsing capabilities, among other features—at the Macworld convention in San Francisco. Jobs, dressed in his customary jeans and black mock turtleneck, called the iPhone a “revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead […]

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Arts & Entertainment

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