1846 ..... the FIRST operation using ether was carried out when Dr John Collins Warren successfully removed a tumour from the jaw of a 20 year old male patient 

1897 ..... GERMANY ..... the FIRST play to mention the cinema was Hans Huckebein which was first shown at the Lessing Theatre in Berlin 

1901 ..... U.S.A ..... the FIRST coloured person to dine at the White House in Washington was Booker T Washington,  the noted reformer and teacher and president of the FIRST University for coloured people in the USA in Alabama. 34 people were killed in the race riots set off by his visit 

1902 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST Borstal was opened in Kent and of the 9,000 boys who passed through the system in its first 20 years, only around 35% came into contact with the law again 

1908 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST aeroplane flight in Britain was made by the American showman ‘Colonel’ Samuel Franklin Cody who flew his plane, ‘Flying Cathedral’ 1,390 feet before making a bumpy landing.  A year earlier he had thrilled Londoners by flying an airship low over the rooftops ..... and ..... NORTH AFRICA ..... the Omnia Pathe was the FIRST cinema in Tunisia 

1913 ..... U.K ..... the world’s FIRST oil-driven battleship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was launched at Portsmouth 

1916 ..... U.S.A ..... Margaret Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrne opened the FIRST birth control clinic in the USA 

1920 ..... U.K ..... Gordon Richards, 26 times a champion jockey, had his FIRST ride at Lingfield Park 

1946 ….. the Bing Crosby Show went out over the air for the FIRST time and it was the FIRST national radio programme ever to have been recorded. It was also one of the most heavily promoted radio shows of all time 

1958 ..... U.K ..... the Blue Peter Show FIRST began and was presented by Leila Williams and Christopher Trace. It began as a seven week experiment and was still going strong 40 years later

1964 ..... China exploded her FIRST H-bomb

1978 ..... ITALY .....  Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, was chosen as the FIRST non-Italian Pope for more than 400 years and chose the name John Paul 11