23rd

1874 ..... U.K ..... lawn tennis was FIRST patented by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield under the title “ Sphairistike”. He made a small fortune by selling all the necessary equipment - a plain rubber ball, a racket with a pear shaped head and a net - at 5 guineas a time.  Eventually it was adopted by the All England Croquet Club which sponsored the FIRST Wimbledon championships in 1877 

1920 ..... U.K .....  the FIRST programme of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company was broadcast when Peter Pendleton Eckersley said “Hello! Hello!. This is Two-Emma-Toc-Writtle testing”. Two-Emma-Toc stood for “MT, the licence granted to Marconi by the General Post Office. This FIRST programme was a half-hour of news, music and gramophone records. The FIRST live singer heard over the airwaves was a soprano, Miss W Sayer. 2MT went off the air soon after June 15th when the Postmaster General banned broadcasting, but after pressure was back on again on February 14th 1922 with a fully licensed half-hour concert once a fortnight 

1931 ..... U.S.A ..... Irene Schroeder became the FIRST woman to be electrocuted in Pennsylvania and the FIRST woman to be executed in that state since 1890

1935 ..... U.K ..... Little Lulu , a comic character, FIRST appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. Her creator was Marjorie Henderson Buell.  Little Lulu was specifically aimed at girls but her charms won her fans of both sexes and all ages  

1950 ..... U.K ..... election results were televised in Britain for the FIRST time

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