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1839 ..... U.K ..... William Henry Fox Talbot described for the FIRST time how to use photographic paper to produce negative prints from which positives could be made 

1879 ..... CANADA ..... the FIRST balloon ascent by a hydrogen balloon was at Montreal and was manned by Richard Cowan, Charles Page and Charles Grimley

1897 ..... the FIRST cinema was established in Brazil when the Salao de Novidades opened in Rio de Janeiro 

1910 ..... Dr Crippen and Ethel le Neve were the FIRST criminals to be tracked down by a wireless message. They were arrested two miles off Father Point, Canada on the SS Montrose after the captain had become suspicious of ‘Mr Robinson and son’ holding hands. He sent a message using the new wireless system and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Dew boarded a fast ship generating a chase that gripped the imagination of people all over Europe 

1950 ..... U.K ..... Sainsbury’s opened their FIRST self-service store in Croydon, London 

1954 ..... Italian mountaineers, Compagnoni and Lacedelli, became the FIRST to reach the peak of K2

1964 ..... FIRST ever close-up photographs of the moon were taken by the U.S Ranger 7

1969 ..... U.K ..... Brenda Hancock became the FIRST woman to speak at a City Livery Company dinner when she addressed the Summer Court dinner of the Worshipful Company Fruiterers at the Skinners Hall in London EC4

1991 ..... JAPAN ..... Takako Doi, chairperson of the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the FIRST woman in Japanese history to be so elected 

2002 ..... U.K ..... Queen Elizabeth 11 became the FIRST British monarch to visit a mosque

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