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1862 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST ever train arrived at Knutsford, Cheshire
1870 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST rules of water polo were drawn up by the London Swimming Association
1888 ..... U.S.A ..... the crouching start was FIRST used in a foot race in America by Charles Sherrill of Yale University
1935 ..... U.S.A ..... Alcoholics Anonymous was FIRST begun in Ohio, America, by William Wilson and Dr Robert Smith when Mr Wilson acknowledged that he was drinking himself to death. The two men gave each other mutual support and this was soon extended to others. Gradually AA groups opened up across America. William Wilson was only known as “Bill W “ preserving the secret of his identity until after his death in 1971. He was described as “the greatest social architect of our time” by Aldous Huxley
1937..... U.K ..... the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth was the FIRST to be televised and broadcast and the FIRST to be filmed. Queen Elizabeth was the FIRST Queen not of royal birth to be crowned in the Abbey for more than four centuries
1952 ..... the FIRST H-bomb was tested on Eniwetok Atoll in the mid-Pacific, exceeding all expectations. The hydrogen bomb is hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki but needed the a-bomb to act as a trigger
1991..... JAPAN ..... Teruko Kanehira became vice-governor of Tokyo, the FIRST woman to do so
1997..... Gary Kasparov became the FIRST world chess champion to be beaten by a computer. The name of the computer was ‘Deep Blue’
2001 ….. U.K ..... for the FIRST time ever the FA Cup Final was held outside England when it took place at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales
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