Happy Anniversary: Fall from high office
HERE ARE the important anniversaries for the week ahead, traditionally a prolific time for horror, hippopotamuses, holidays and the hovercraft.
24 May:
1920: Paul Eugene Deschanel becomes the first President of France to fall off the Orient Express when dressed only in his pyjamas. He was unharmed but resigned four months later.
1956: Switzerland wins the first Eurovision Song Contest.
25 May:
1850: The first hippopotamus arrives in Britain, bound for Regent's Park zoo in London.
1857: The Oxfordshire Light Infantry become the first British regiment to dress in khaki (Karkeerung native cloth).
1907: The Finnish Diet in Helsingfors become the world's first parliament to have women members.
1951: Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean disappear.
26 May:
1908: A large oil strike in Persia is the first in the Middle East.
27 May:
1863: The first asylum for the criminally insane is established at Broadmoor.
1911: Vincent Price is born, 11 years to the day before Christopher Lee. They both arrive one day late to celebrate Peter Cushing's birthday.
1851: The world's first international chess tournament begins in London.
28 May:
1742: England's first indoor swimming pool opens in London.
1951: The first broadcast of the Goon Show is made.
29 May:
1871: White Monday becomes Britain's first bank holiday.
1942: Bing Crosby records 'White Christmas'.
30 May:
1911: Sir W S Gilbert, 74, drowns after a heart attack in a swimming pool near Harrow while giving swimming lessons to two schoolgirls.
1959: Launch of the first experimental hovercraft, designed by Sir Christopher Cockerell, at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
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