Los coleccionables del Museo Zumalakarregi

The Crimean War intensified. 1854 The first correspondent sent by The Times to cover the war returned home with the sordid details of the conflict as it was really being fought. From this moment onwards, military commanders learned that wars must not only be won on the battlefield, but in the newspapers also. Victories came, but so did complaints about the deplorable state of the hospitals. The voluntary nurse, Florence Nightingale, managed to improve conditions in the Crimean hospitals, considerably reducing the death rate among the ill and injured.

The era of time-saving domestic devices arrived 1851 with the invention of the domestic sewing machine. The American inventor and manufacturer, Singer, developed and commenced production of the first manual machine.

Gustave Flaubert wrote his controversial novel Madame Bovary, 1856 as the result of which both the writer and his publisher were tried (and acquitted) for a crime against public morals. The frankness of the novel and its literary style quickly made it a classic.

Charles Darwin expounded his theory of evolution and natural selection 1859 in his publication The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection. The English biologist had spent 20 years working on his book after making a series of important discoveries on the Galapagos Islands.

The British engineer, Bessemer, 1855 invented the industrial process for manufacturing steel.

José María Iparraguirre 1853 sung El Gernikako Arbola at the San Luis café in Madrid. The speed with which this zortziko became known is evidence of the popularity of fuerismo (philosophy defending the individual rights and privileges of certain regions), which was supported by a variety of different political opinions.