Happy Anniversary: Trying times for travellers

13 June:

1842: Queen Victoria takes her first train ride, from Slough to Paddington.

1886: Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria commits suicide by drowning in the Starnberger Sea. His psychiatrist, Bernhard von Gudden, dies while trying to save him.

14 June:

1494: The Grand Mayor of the church and monastery of St Martin de Laon in France condemns a pig to be hanged for the crime of infanticide.

1755: Dr Samuel Johnson's dictionary goes on sale.

1789: Captain William Bligh is cast adrift from HMS Bounty.

1906: Following the death of a female parachutist, a Bill is published banning women from dangerous sports.

1965: Two OBE insignia are returned to Buckingham Palace in protest at the award of similar honours to the Beatles.

15 June:

1928: The Flying Scotsman beats an aeroplane in a race from London to Edinburgh.

1985: First mixed marriage in South Africa.

16 June:

1904: The date on which James Joyce's Ulysses takes place.

1930: Mixed bathing is allowed in the Serpentine in London's Hyde Park.

1948: A Cathay Pacific Airlines seaplane, Miss Macao, becomes the first aeroplane to be hijacked when the pilot is forced to change direction and fly to Hong Kong.

1958: Yellow no-waiting lines come into force on the streets of Britain.

1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

1978: The video game era begins as 'Space Invaders' is demonstrated by the Taito Corporation of Tokyo.

17 June:

1823: Charles Macintosh patents a new waterproof fabric.

1939: In France, Eugen Weidmann becomes the last man to be guillotined in public.

1963: Buckingham Palace admits that Prince Charles, aged 14, bought a cherry brandy in a hotel bar.

18 June:

1583: The first life insurance policy is sold.

1978: Jim Davis creates a cartoon cat called Garfield, named after his grandfather, James A Garfield Davis.

19 June:

1885: The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York from France.

1910: Fathers' Day is instituted in the US by Mrs John Bruce Dodd of Spokane, Washington.