Happy Anniversary: Another defeat for England

SOME of the dates you might otherwise have overlooked in the coming week, historically a period of mixed fortunes for composers, but generally good for women and tennis players.

22 November:

Feast Day of St Cecilia, patron of music, who scored well with the birth of Benjamin Britten (1913) but rather let down Arthur Sullivan, who died on this day in 1900. But it is the birthday of Billie-Jean King (1943) and Boris Becker (1967).

1946: First Biro ball-point pen goes on sale.

23 November:

1852: Britain's first pillar-boxes come into use in St Helier, Jersey.

1889: The first jukebox in a bar is installed at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco.

1906: The tenor Enrico Caruso is fined dollars 10 for sexual harassment.

1910: Dr Hawley Crippen is hanged.

1921: President Warren Harding closes a loophole in the prohibition law by banning doctors from prescribing beer.

1963: First episode of Dr Who is screened.

24 November:

1642: Abel Tasman discovers Tasmania, which he calls Van Diemen's Land, after the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, who sponsored his trip.

1715: A Frost Fair is held on the frozen waters of the River Thames.

1868: Smithfield meat market is opened in London.

25 November:

2348 BC: According to some fundamentalist biblical scholars, this is when the Great Flood began.

1884: Evaporated milk patented in St Louis, Missouri.

1896: First parking summons issued in Britain, though the case against William Marshall is later dismissed.

1923: First transatlantic wireless broadcast from Britain to the United States.

1937: An inter-regional spelling contest becomes the first broadcast quiz programme broadcast in Britain.

1952: First performance of The Mousetrap at the Ambassadors Theatre.

1953: In the year that Arsenal won the League Championship, England - fielding no Arsenal players - succumbed to their first home defeat, 3-6 against Hungary, in a football international.

26 November:

1789: First national celebration of Thanksgiving in the USA.

1832: Trams introduced in New York City.

1988: A Torquay woman spends pounds 10,000 re-enacting her daughter's marriage because she didn't like the video.

27 November:

1582: Most probable date for marriage of William Shakespeare, 18, to Anne Hathaway.

1914: First policewomen go on duty in Britain, at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1967: Charles de Gaulle says 'Non' to Britain's application to join the Common Market.

28 November:

1837: Birth of John Wesley Hyatt, inventor of the composition billiard ball.

1893: Women in New Zealand go to the polls, the first women to cast votes in any national election.

1909: France passes a law allowing pregnant women eight weeks' leave.

1916: Four injured in first air raid on London.

1919: Nancy Astor elected as the first woman MP.

1990: Margaret Thatcher delivers her resignation to the Queen, after announcing her departure six days before.

(Photograph omitted)