April 19

Events

• Current events

• 1824 - A nobleman, a great poet, and a pedo - Poet George Gordon, better known by his title, Lord Byron, died on this date. He is reputed to have had a ravenous sexual appetite. Byron's attraction to adolescent boys had first become evident at school, where he referred to his entourage of adoring younger pupils as his Theban band. At Cambridge, Byron fell in with a sophisticated group of like-minded friends fascinated by the theory and practice of sodomy. When he was 17, Byron met and fell in love with John Edleston, a Trinity College chorister, and wrote some of his most beautiful lyrics of lament to his "musical protégé", using the deceptive female name of Thyrza, after Edleston died young, he traveled widely in Greece and Turkey, where sex with boys was more or less accepted as the norm and he found willing partners. He once took a young friend, Nicolo Giraud to a doctor to repair his sphincter. Byron was adored for his literary achievements, and is still remembered today as one of the great writers of his age.