History of Lantern in Timeline

By Popular Timelines Editorial Team · Updated: January 1, 1970

1361

The derived term "lantern jaw[ed]" is used in two quite different still current ways, comparing faces with different types of lantern. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it refers to "long thin jaws, giving a hollow appearance to the cheek"; this use was recorded in 1361, referring to a lantern with concave horn sides before glass was in use. Another meaning of "lantern jaw" compares a lantern with a jutting base – such as the 15th-century example above – to the face of a person with the extended chin of mandibular prognathism; this condition was also known as Habsburg jaw or Habsburg lip, as it was a hereditary feature of the House of Habsburg (see, for example, portraits of Charles V).

1417

In 1417, the Mayor of London ordered that all homes must hang lanterns outdoors after nightfall during the winter months. This marked the first organized public street lighting. Lanterns have been used functionally, for light rather than decoration, since antiquity. Some used a wick in oil, while others were essentially protected candle-holders. Before the development of glass sheets, animal horns were scraped thin and flattened to create a translucent window.

1588

Public spaces became increasingly lit with lanterns in the 1500s, especially following the invention of lanterns with glass windows, which greatly improved the quantity of light. In 1588 the Parisian Parlement decreed that a torch be installed and lit at each intersection, and in 1594 the police changed this to lanterns. Beginning in 1667 during the reign of King Louis XIV, thousands of street lights were installed in Parisian streets and intersections. Under this system, streets were lit with lanterns suspended 20 yards (18 m) apart on a cord over the middle of the street at a height of 20 feet (6.1 m); as an English visitor described in 1698, 'The streets are lit all winter and even during the full moon!' In London, a diarist wrote in 1712 that ‘All the way, quite through Hyde Park to the Queen's Palace at Kensington, lanterns were placed for illuminating the roads on dark nights.’

March 1764

In March 1764 and twice in October 1764, George Allsopp, a British-born Canadian, was arrested in Quebec for violating an order to carry lanterns during the night. There was violence every time he was arrested and Allsopp would denounce the military. In October he prosecuted the soldiers involved in his arrests. On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere's midnight ride took place after two lanterns were held up in the Old North Church to signal to revolutionaries in Charlestown that the British troops were crossing the Charles River to disarm the rebel colonial militias. The Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred the day after, on April 19, starting the American Revolution.

1361

1417

1588

March 1764

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