1742 ..... Handel’s Messiah was given its FIRST performance

1896 ..... U.S.A ..... Edison unveiled his Vitascope, a primitive projection machine, at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. It was a sensation

1927 ..... U.K ..... Cardiff City beat Arsenal 1-0 in the FA Cup Final to become the FIRST club to take the cup out of England

1959 ..... U.K ..... Britain’s FIRST heliport was opened on the Thames

1965 ..... U.K ..... the Pennine Way, the FIRST long distance footpath in Britain, was opened. It stretched for 250 miles from Derbyshire into Scotland

1967 ..... SPACE ..... the FIRST manned Russian space mission in a Soyuz spacecraft was launched from Kazakhstan and cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the FIRST Russian to make a second flight. He was also the FIRST man to die in space when Soyuz One began to tumble wildly and crashed on re-entry. it had been planned that the spacecraft would make 18 orbits of the earth before re-entry. Soviet officials said that the parachute became tangled but an amateur tracking station said that they heard the cosmonaut say ‘ You are guiding me wrongly’

1968 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST decimal coins were circulated in the U.K. - 1/- = 5 new pence and 2/- = 10 new pence

1989 ..... U.K ..... an hour’s highlights from the women’s FA Cup final, which was played at Old Trafford in Manchester, was televised by Channel 4 for the FIRST time at the prime viewing time of 5.30 to 6.30pm. It had been a 20 year battle for recognition of women’s football and there were at this time 8,000 registered women players in Britain whilst in Italy and West Germany there were 600,000

1994 ..... U.K ..... Mary Allen became the FIRST woman Secretary General of the Arts Council

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