How the Georgians invented nightlife

Modern nightlife was invented in London around 1700. So argued the historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch, who traced this revolution in city life to its origins in court culture. Medieval and Renaissance courts held their festivities while it was still light outside, but by the late 17th century, aristocrats preferred to party after dark. The trend was rapidly commercialised: a new kind of conspicuous consumer descended on pleasure gardens like Vauxhall and Ranelagh, to eat, drink, stroll and listen to music by the many-coloured light of thousands of oil lamps.

Or you can give King Louis XIV the credit: in 1667 he ordered that Paris be lit up by thousands of candle lanterns, and the idea spread through Europe’s metropolises. Before that, night was a fearful, all-consuming presence, and the main challenge was to get through it, ideally without falling off a bridge or being stabbed.