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1851 ….. U.K ..... the telegraph service between London and Paris FIRST began 

1907 ….. FRANCE ..... the FIRST helicopter took off and spent 20 seconds in the air at an altitude of 6 feet. French inventor Paul Cornu was at the controls and demonstrated his 2-engine craft in a field near his home town of Lisieux, Normandy 

1914 ..... U.S.A ..... Mary Phelps Jacob patented the FIRST bra  when she stitched together 2 lace handkerchiefs onto a piece of ribbon and wore it instead of her usual tightly laced whalebone corsets.   She sold her patent to Warner Brothers Corset Company for $3750. She is also recorded as being the FIRST official girl scout in America named by Lady Baden Powell 

1928 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST talking film outside America was shown at the New Oxford cinema in Manchester. It was a 12 reel Uncle Tom’s Cabin 

1939 ..... U.K ..... HMS Blanche became the FIRST destroyer to be lost by the Royal Navy when it was mined and sunk off the Thames Estuary

1949 ….. U.S.A ..... Way Out West was an early-morning series which was FIRST heard on this day. The hillbilly harmonists were Johnny Denis and his Ranchers and they featured cowboy ditties plus comedy designed for young listeners who loved the western serials at Saturday morning pictures 

1971 ..... U.S.A ..... the FIRST human built object to orbit another planet was the American spacecraft Mariner 9 when it entered orbit around Mars. Eventually over 7000 pictures were returned, many of them quite clear 

1987 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST criminal conviction based on genetic fingerprinting led to a rapist being sentenced to 8 years in prison at Bristol Crown court

2005 ..... U.K ..... Sir Paul McCartney became the FIRST artist in history to broadcast live music into space when his performance of the Beatles classic Good Day sunshine was beamed to the international space station crew, 220 miles above the Earth

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