1667 ..... FRANCE ..... the FIRST recorded blood transfusion was carried out by Jean-Baptiste Denys when he used blood from a lamb to save the life of a young boy

1678 ..... ITALY ..... Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the FIRST woman to be awarded a doctorate at the University of Padua

1801 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST massage parlour opened in London

1933 ..... the FIRST England v India test match

1936 ..... U.S.A ..... the FIRST Dakota aeroplane to enter airline service rolled out of the hangar. Its makers, the Douglas Aircraft Corporation of California, called it the DC3 or the Skytrain

1939 ..... U.K ..... Private Rupert Alexander was the FIRST National Serviceman when he signed up with the Middlesex Regiment. His number was 10000001

1944 ..... FRANCE ..... the FIRST daylight parachute drop of the Second World War was made near Sussac. A force of 86 Flying Fortresses attended by many Lightings and Mustangs dropped 864 containers filled with supplies, weapons, ammunition, petrol, money etc. It took 300 Maquis 3 days and 30 lorries to carry the supplies away

1951..... U.K ..... the FIRST cadets began training at the Metropolitan Police College at Hendon, North London ..... and ..... the FIRST colour television was transmitted in the U.S.A

1967..... U.K ..... 400 million viewers in 26 nations watched the world’s FIRST televised satellite hook-up - the Beatles recording of “All you need is love” at Abbey Road

1984 ..... SPACE ..... Svetlana Savitskaya became the FIRST woman to walk in space when, with the commander of Salyut 7, the orbiting space laboratory, she tested equipment designed to carry out repairs in space.

1995 ..... bus and coach passengers travelled through the Channel Tunnel from England to France for the FIRST time

1997..... Mitsuro Oba, a 44 year-old Japanese man, completed the FIRST solo walk across the Arctic Ocean. He arrived at Resolute, northern Canada after a 1,075 mile trek that had begun 4 months earlier on Russia’s Komsomolets island, on the other side of the Arctic