October 20

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1854 – Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (d.1891) was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent movement, Rimbaud influenced modern literature, music and art. He was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, travelling extensively on three continents before his death from cancer just after his 37th birthday.

At the age of fifteen, Rimbaud was showing maturity as a poet; the first poem he showed his tutor, Georges Izambard, "Ophélie", would later be included in anthologies as one of Rimbaud's three or four best poems. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Izambard left Charleville and Rimbaud became despondent. He ran away to Paris with no money for his ticket and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for a week. After returning home, Rimbaud ran away again to escape his mother's wrath.

From late October 1870, Rimbaud's behaviour became outwardly provocative; he drank alcohol, spoke rudely, composed scatological poems, stole books from local shops, and abandoned his hitherto characteristically neat appearance by allowing his hair to grow long. At the same time he wrote to Izambard about his method for attaining poetical vision through a "long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses. The sufferings are enormous, but one must be strong, be born a poet, and I have recognized myself as a poet." It is rumoured that he briefly joined the Paris Commune of 1871, which he portrayed in his poem L'orgie parisienne (ou : Paris se repeuple), ("The Parisian Orgy; or Paris Repopulates"). Another poem, Le cœur volé ("The Stolen Heart"), is often interpreted as a description of him being raped by drunken Communard soldiers, but this is unlikely since Rimbaud continued to support the Communards and wrote poems sympathetic to their aims.

Rimbaud was encouraged by a friend to write to Paul Verlaine, an eminent poet, after letters to other poets failed to garner replies. Taking his advice, Rimbaud sent Verlaine two letters containing several of his poems. Verlaine, who was intrigued by Rimbaud, sent a reply that stated, "Come, dear great soul. We await you; we desire you," along with a one-way ticket to Paris. Rimbaud arrived in late September 1871 at Verlaine's invitation and resided briefly in Verlaine's home.

Rimbaud and Verlaine began a short and torrid affair. Whereas Verlaine had likely engaged in prior homosexual experiences, it remains uncertain whether the relationship with Verlaine was Rimbaud's first. During their time together they led a wild, vagabond-like life spiced by absinthe and hashish. They scandalized the Parisian literary circle on account of the outrageous behaviour of Rimbaud, the archetypical enfant terrible, who throughout this period continued to write strikingly visionary verse. The stormy relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine eventually brought them to London in September 1872, a period about which Rimbaud would later express regret. During this time, Verlaine abandoned his wife and infant son (both of whom he had abused in his alcoholic rages). Rimbaud and Verlaine lived in considerable poverty, in Bloomsbury and in Camden Town, scraping a living mostly from teaching, in addition to an allowance from Verlaine's mother. Rimbaud spent his days in the Reading Room of the British Museum where "heating, lighting, pens and ink were free." The relationship between the two poets grew increasingly bitter.

By late June 1873, Verlaine grew frustrated with the relationship and returned to Paris, where he quickly began to mourn Rimbaud's absence. On 8 July, he telegraphed Rimbaud, instructing him to come to the Hotel Liège in Brussels; Rimbaud complied at once. The Brussels reunion went badly: they argued continuously and Verlaine took refuge in heavy drinking. On the morning of 10 July, Verlaine bought a revolver and ammunition.That afternoon, "in a drunken rage," Verlaine fired two shots at Rimbaud, one of them wounding the 18-year-old in the left wrist.

Rimbaud dismissed the wound as superficial, and did not initially seek to file charges against Verlaine. But shortly after the shooting, Verlaine (and his mother) accompanied Rimbaud to a Brussels railway station, where Verlaine "behaved as if he were insane." His bizarre behavior induced Rimbaud to "fear that he might give himself over to new excesses," so he turned and ran away. In his words, "it was then I [Rimbaud] begged a police officer to arrest him [Verlaine]." Verlaine was arrested for attempted murder and subjected to a humiliating medico-legal examination. He was also interrogated with regard to both his intimate correspondence with Rimbaud and his wife's accusations about the nature of his relationship with Rimbaud. Rimbaud eventually withdrew the complaint, but the judge nonetheless sentenced Verlaine to two years in prison.

At 21, Rimbaud quit writing and sought other employments to help him travel widely in Europe, The Dutch East Indies, and North Africa where he developed an infection in his leg in 1891. He shipped back to Marseilles, where the cancerous leg was amputated. He died in November of that year.

1871 – George Seymour, 7th Marquess of Hertford (d.1940) was the son of Hugh Seymour, 6th Marquess of Hertford.

In 1895, he was sent to Australia by his family "for the good of his health and the country", due to his blatant homosexual behaviour. He settled in Mackay, growing sugar cane and bananas, but quickly created great animosity, due to being a dishonest employer: he was sued by a labourer (who won the case) for underpayment, and boasted tricking kanakas (Pacific Islanders) who purchased his chickens into thinking gold sovereigns were less valuable than silver half crowns.

He was noted for all-male house parties at his isolated residence 'The Rocks' near Mackay, and achieved notoriety for "skirt dancing" in a sequinned outfit with butterfly wings, as one newspaper phrased it: "gyrating in the fluffy serpentine dance before a Kanaka audience... His legs being tough and skinny his audience show little inclination to pot him as long pig." When he returned to England in 1897, a Mackay newspaper noted the citizens were "more interested in his departure" than his arrival.

From 1889 to 1894, he served in the Black Watch and was a Lieutenant in the Warwickshire Imperial Yeomanry. He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant for Warwickshire and Justice of the Peace for Warwickshire.

He appeared on stage in the United States in one of Charles Frohman's companies under the name of Eric Hope.

He filed for bankruptcy in 1909 and 1910, shortly before inheriting his father's titles and estate, Ragley Hall.

In 1884, he became the Earl of Yarmouth and in 1901, he became the 7th Marquess of Hertford.

After his father's death on 23 March 1912, he succeeded as the 7th Earl of Hertford, the 7th Earl of Yarmouth, the 8th Baron Conway of Ragley, the 7th Viscount Beauchamp, the 7th Marquess of Hertford, and the 8th Baron Conway and Killultagh.

On 27 April 1903, he married heiress Alice Cornelia Thaw. She was the daughter of William Thaw Sr. At the wedding he extorted her parents to increase the dowry under the threat he would not go through the marriage. The marriage was annulled in 1908 due to non-consummation. As part of the divorce, all financial interests were returned to Thaw, and she resumed using her maiden name.

In May 1913, he became engaged to a Mrs. Moss-Cockle, who was much older than him and received $3,250,000 by her former husband. By July of the same year, the engagement was called off, with The New York Times writing: "It is rumored that lately the course of true love has not been running as smoothly as it ought to in the case of the Marquis of Hartford and Mrs. Moss Cockie, whose engagement was recently announced."

Lord Hertford died at his home in Torquay, Devonshire in 1940, aged 68 and childless. His titles passed to his nephew, Hugh Seymour.

1873 – Sir Edmund Backhouse (pronounced Backus) (d.1944) was a British oriental scholar and linguist whose work exerted a powerful influence on the Western view of the last decades of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Since his death, however, it has been established that some of his sources were forged, though it is not clear how many or by whom.

His biographer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, described him as "a confidence man with few equals." (Was he the original "cunnning linguist?") Derek Sandhaus of Earnshaw Books, the editor of Backhouse's memoirs, after consulting with specialists in the period, argues that Trevor-Roper was offended by Backhouse's homosexuality and that Backhouse's undoubted confabulation was mixed with plausible recollection of scenes and details.

In 1899 he arrived in Peking where he soon began collaborating with the influential Times correspondent Dr. George Morrison, aiding him with translation work. At this time he had already learned several languages, including Russian, Japanese and Chinese. In 1918 he inherited the family baronetcy from his father, Sir Jonathan Backhouse, 1st Baronet. He spent most of the rest of his life in Peking, in the employment of various companies and individuals, who made use of his language skills and alleged connections to the Chinese imperial court for the negotiation of business deals. None of these deals was ever successful.

He also worked as a secret agent for the British legation during the First World War, managing an arms deal between Chinese sources and the UK. In 1916 he presented himself as a representative of the Imperial Court and negotiated two fraudulent deals with the American Bank Note Company and John Brown & Company, a British shipbuilder. Neither company received any confirmation from the court. When they tried to contact Backhouse, he had left the country. After he returned to Peking in 1922 he refused to speak about the deals.

Backhouse's life was led in alternate periods of total reclusion and alienation from his Western origins, and work for Western companies and governments. In 1939, the Austrian Embassy offered him refuge, and he made the acquaintance of the Swiss consul, Dr Richard Hoeppli, whom he impressed with tales of his sexual adventures and homosexual life in old Beijing. Hoeppli persuaded him to write his memoirs, which were consulted by Trevor-Roper, but not published until 2011 by Earnshaw Books.

In 1973 Trevor-Roper received a manuscript of Backhouse's memoirs, in which he boasted of having had affairs with prominent people, including Lord Rosebery, Paul Verlaine, an Ottoman princess, Oscar Wilde, and especially the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. Trevor-Roper described the diary as "pornographic," considered its claims, and eventually declared its contents to be figments of Backhouse's fertile imagination.

Robert Bickers, in the Dictionary of National Biography, calls Backhouse a "fraudster," and declares that he "may indeed in his memoirs have been the chronicler of, for example, male brothel life in late-imperial Peking, and there may be many small truths in those manuscripts that fill out the picture of his life, but we know now that not a word he ever said or wrote can be trusted."

Derek Sandhaus, however, notes that Trevor-Roper did not consult specialists in Chinese affairs, and seems to have read only enough of the text to have been disgusted by its homosexuality. While conceding that Backhouse fabricated or imagined many of these assignations, Sandhaus finds that others are plausible or independently confirmed and he reasons that Backhouse spoke Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian, the languages of the imperial household, and his account of the atmosphere and customs of the Empress Dowager's court may be more reliable than Trevor Roper allowed.

1896 – Iowa Supreme Court permits divorce on cruelty grounds due to one spouse's violating a sodomy statute.

1912 – Roger Sacheverell Coke (d.1972) was an English composer and pianist.

Roger Sacheverell Coke (pronounced "Cook")was from a wealthy family. He inherited the family estate of Brookhill Hall, Pinxton at the age of two, when his father, Lieutenant Langton Sacheverell Coke, died at the Battle of Ypres in October 1914.

Coke began composing when he was at Eton College, where he was taught by Henry Ley, and was influenced to take up the piano by hearing Benno Moiseiwitsch. Coke's musical interests were strongly supported by his mother and for his 21st birthday, she had outbuildings on the family estate converted to a large music studio and performance space, equipped with a Steinway piano, and with capacity for an audience of several hundred. He pursued his study of composition and the piano seriously. He took piano lessons in London with Mabel Lander (herself a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky and teacher of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret) and was later a pupil of Alan Bush.

Coke was homosexual, and a heavy cigarette smoker. Despite his freedom from financial concerns, he suffered from depression. However, in the safe isolation of his studio he composed a large corpus of works, with a strong emphasis on his own instrument, the piano. For the orchestra he wrote three symphonies, six piano concertos, two "vocal concertos" for soprano and orchestra and four symphonic poems. In the chamber music field there are sonatas for cello and for violin, as well as extended works for piano solo, notably the 24 Preludes and 15 Variations and Finale, and a number of songs.

Despite the failure of any publisher to take up his works, some were performed around Britain, and occasionally broadcast. Coke bore the cost of those of his compositions that were published, and often also the costs of performance. Some works were taken up by leading musicians, including pianists Charles Lynch and Moura Lympany, and he counted Moiseiwitsch and Sergei Rachmaninoff amongst his friends.

1921 – Born: Dutch poet, writer and literary critic Hans Warren (d.2001). Much of his fame in the Netherlands derives from having published a collection of diaries in which he described his life and homosexual experiences in a country that deeply repressed homosexuality. He is also known for his poetry, his literary criticism, and his translations of poetry from Modern Greek.

Warren had quite a career as a respected poet, publishing a book of poems a year at this peak. In all, Warren published an astonishing 36 books of poetry. In 1952 he married an English woman, and they had three children. Soon after their marriage his wife was offered a position in Paris, where Warren's repressed homosexual feelings found an outlet in many contacts with North African boys. Although this created tension in his marriage, it also sparked his poetic career: Warren published three collections of poetry during his years in Paris, and the marriage, in the end, lasted until 1978.

He later came out and found love when, in 1978 Warren met Mario Molegraaf, forty years his junior (Warren was 57 at that time). The two began a tumultuous love affair that lasted until Warren's death. Molegraaf was a talented writer himself, and together they published a number of translations: the entire work of Constantine P. Cavafy, several poems by George Seferis, works by Plato and Epicurius, and the four gospels.

Hans Warren with Mario Molegraaf

The publication of his series of diaries, The Secret Diary, caused some concern among Warren's friends and colleagues: as the title implies, the diaries are quite frank. Warren openly describes his own life and experiences, and offers his opinions on everyone, including his friends. The twentieth volume covered the years 1996 to 1998, with one more volume to be published.

Warren died at age 80 of liver problems; even his final year is described in his diary (which he kept until three days before his death) and in that of Molegraaf (published in 2002).

1926 – Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (d.2015) was a British Conservative politician well known in Britain for founding the National Motor Museum, as well as for a pivotal cause célèbre in British gay history, his 1954 conviction and imprisonment for homosexual sex, a charge he denied.

Lord Montagu was born in London, and inherited his barony in 1929 at the age of two, when his father, the 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, was killed in an accident. He attended St. Peter's Court School and Ridley College in Canada, Eton College and New College, Oxford. He served in the Grenadier Guards, including service in Palestine before the end of the British Mandate. On coming of age, Lord Montagu immediately took his seat in the House of Lords and swiftly made his maiden speech on the subject of Palestine.

Lord Montagu knew from an early stage of life that he was bisexual, and while attending Oxford was relieved to find others with similar feelings. In a 2000 interview he stated,

Despite keeping his homosexual affairs discreet and out of the public eye, in the mid-1950s, Lord Montagu became "one of the most notorious public figures of his generation," after his conviction and imprisonment for "conspiracy to incite certain male persons to commit serious offences with male persons," a charge which was also used in the Oscar Wilde trials in 1895, and remained on the books until 1967.

On two occasions Lord Montagu was charged and committed for trial at Winchester Assizes, firstly in 1953 for allegedly taking sexual advantage of a 14-year-old Boy Scout at his beach hut on the Solent, a charge he has always denied. When prosecutors failed to achieve a conviction, in what Lord Montagu has characterised as a "witch hunt" to secure a high-profile conviction, he was arrested again in 1954 and charged with performing "gross offences" with an RAF serviceman during a weekend party at the beach hut, located on Lord Montagu's country estate. Lord Montagu has always maintained he was innocent of this charge as well ("We had some drinks, we danced, we kissed, that's all.") Nevertheless, he was imprisoned for twelve months for "consensual homosexual offences" along with Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood.

Unlike the other defendants in the trial, Lord Montagu continued to protest his innocence. The trial caused a backlash of opinion among some politicians and church leaders that led to the setting up of the Wolfenden Committee, which in its 1957 report recommended the decriminalisation of homosexual activity in private between two adults. Ten years later, Parliament finally carried out the recommendation, a huge turning point in gay history in Britain, where male homosexuality had been completely outlawed in statute law since 1533.

In a 2007 interview, when asked if he felt that he and his co-defendants had been instrumental in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain, Lord Montagu said,

The story of Lord Montagu's trial is told in a 2007 Channel 4 documentary, A Very British Sex Scandal.

1941 – South African police are called in to quiet a disturbance at a gold mine caused by the dismissal of 122 miners for refusing to stop dances in which boys are squeezed and kissed.

1941 – The Arkansas Supreme Court rejects the request of a sodomy defendant to be sent to a hospital to determine his mental status.

1969 – The National Institutes of Mental Health released a report based on a study led by psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker. The report urged states to repeal sodomy laws.

1987 – The US House of Representatives voted 368-47 to approve an amendment to withhold federal funding from any AIDS education organization which encourages homosexual activity. The senate approved a similar amendment the previous week by a vote of 94-2. It was introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms.

1987 – The US House Judiciary Committee voted 21-13 to approve a bill requiring the justice department to collect statistics on hate crimes, including anti-gay violence.

1992 – The San Diego Police Department announced that it was severing its ties with the Boy Scouts of America due to a local chapter's dismissal of a gay police officer who was involved with the Explorer program.

1994 – Brennan Clost is a Canadian actor and dancer, known for portraying the role of Daniel on the Family series The Next Step. In 2020, he starred in the Netflix dance drama series Tiny Pretty Things.

Clost was born in Burlington, Ontario. Whilst growing up, he was bullied by classmates, stating that they made "very crass comments", threw snowballs at him and he would "get looks" in the hallway. Clost studied dance at various dance studios across southern Ontario, including National Ballet School of Canada and Springboard Danse Montreal. Initially wanting to study medicine at university, he was advised by his dance teacher to audition for the Juilliard School.

In March 2012, he auditioned and was accepted into the Juilliard School on a scholarship, making it as one of two male Canadian dancers to be accepted onto the course. Clost's choreography was showcased annually at Juilliard's Choreographic Honours Program and in elementary schools throughout New York City, and he graduated in 2016. Through dance, Clost has damaged his ankle, had Achilles tendinitis and had "serious wrist and shoulder problems". Clost has stated that he does not label himself with a sexuality, but added that he is "not straight".

In 2017, Clost starred in the in web series Spiral, alongside The Next Step co-star Alexandra Beaton. In 2019, he was cast in the Netflix dance drama series Tiny Pretty Things as Shane, which premiered in December 2020.

1995 – Dalton Maldonado is an American high school basketball player and LGBT rights activist, who came to National prominence whe he shared his harrowing tale of intimidation when he came out at a high school basketball game in Kentucky.

In 2015, he was featured as one of the most influential people in the LGBT community by the magazine Out and he was named "Person of the Year" by Outsports. He grew up in Kentucky and became known after coming out after a basketball game. His coming out gained national attention after being featured in Outsports magazine. Maldonado wants to make sure no other teen endures the harassment he received after coming out in December 2014.

Following reports that he had been harassed because of his sexuality by the rival team from Bryan Station High School, both schools were challenged in the press. Both schools said that they had conducted internal investigations and denied any wrongdoing. The Fayette County Public Schools administration's investigation concluded that the event "was inaccurately reported and mischaracterized" by media.

After coming out, Maldonado's picture was left out of the two-page spread that commemorated his basketball team in his senior yearbook. In addition to the team photo, there were individual call-outs for every member of the team except Maldonado. His school, Betsy Layne High School, claimed that the omission was accidental and that the school district "holistically supports Dalton Maldonado just as we do all our students". They point out that the book includes 15 photos of Maldonado, including many that show him playing basketball.

Maldonado has a fragrance released by Xyrena called Formula 3, sales of which will support the LGBT sports organization "You Can Play". Fragrance industry analysts Basenotes claim that this is "the first signature fragrance from an openly gay athlete".

Maldonado was invited to speak at The Atlantic's inaugural LGBT summit in Washington D.C. in December 2015, aiming to "convene wide-ranging conversations on queer identity in America, at the end of a game-changing year in arenas from politics to pop culture".

1997 – Portugal's first Gay and Lesbian Community Centre opened in Lisbon.