1831 ..... Faraday demonstrated the production of electricity from magnetism with the FIRST transformer 

1882 ..... Australia beat England in a test match for the FIRST time. The Sporting Times ran the following mock obituary “ the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”.  The English captain vowed to regain these 'ashes' in Australia, got his revenge and so some ladies from Melbourne burnt a bail and presented its ashes to him. The Ashes came into being 

1885 ..... the FIRST motorcycle was demonstrated by Gottlieb Daimler in Germany 

1909 ..... the world’s FIRST international week finished with a race for the Gordon Bennet Cup. Thirty eight planes were entered but only a dozen managed to get off the ground and the race was won by Glenn H Curtiss, a US inventor-aviator, in a small biplane which he had designed himself.  He won the £800 prize for covering 18 miles in 24mins 18 secs just beating off the challenge of Louis Blériot who had just made the FIRST-ever plane crossing of the Channel

 1911 ..... U.K ..... Hilda Hewlett became the FIRST woman to gain a pilot's licence in Britain when she qualified on a Henry Farman biplane at Brooklands for Certificate No 122          

1935  .....  U.S.A ..... Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen dancing together for the FIRST time when the film ‘Top Hat’ was screened. In the previous year on October 11th they had introduced ‘The Continental’ which was the FIRST song to win an Academy Award 

1996 ….. U.K .....  Ilora Finlay became the U.K's FIRST woman professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Wales 

1999 ….. U.K ..... the FIRST European Gay Men's Rugby Match took place in Manchester as part of the Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras

 

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