1768 ..... U.S.A ..... false teeth were FIRST advertised for sale in America by a goldsmith called Paul Revere 

1783 ..... FRANCE ..... Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier launched their FIRST hydrogen fitted balloon from which a basket was suspended and so began a craze which swept across Britain and the USA. It was the FIRST balloon with live creatures on board - a sheep, a rooster and a duck  

1876 ..... U.S.A ..... the FIRST carpet sweeper was patented by Melville Bissell, of Grand Rapids, Michigan 

1888 ..... BELGIUM ..... the FIRST beauty contest was held at Spa in Belgium and the winner was an 18 year old Creole called Bertha Soucaret who had been invited to appear in the finals with 20 others chosen from 350 photographs. She won a prize of 5000 francs 

1893 ..... New Zealand ..... became the FIRST country in the world to enfranchise women.  The women first went to the polls on November 28th 1893 and when the polls closed at 7 o’clock, 90,000 women had peacefully voted  

1896 ..... SOUTH AFRICA ..... the FIRST cartoon concerning films to be published in a newspaper was in the Cape Register in South Africa 

1975 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST episode of Fawlty Towers was televised 

1989 ..... U.K ..... the Wrens celebrated the launch of their FIRST history of the service. WRNS was written by Commandant Marjorie Fletcher and had a foreword by the Princess Royal. It combined a chronology of the service’s history with memoirs and archive material 

1991 ..... SWITZERLAND ..... the FIRST prehistoric human was found who had his clothing and equipment intact and was presumably going about his normal everyday business. He was discovered by Helmut Simon and his wife Erika on a unmarked path across the Similaun glacier in the Otztaler Alps in the Tyrol

2004 ..... U.K ..... Britain's FIRST ever National Walking Day was held

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