The weekend that was
A busy weekend, according to historical precedent, for starting and finishing things:
9 June AD68: The emperor Nero commits suicide.
9 June 1902: The world's first automat opens in Philadelphia.
9 June 1907: The maiden flight of Santos Dumont's combined aeroplane/airship ends in disaster when the ship is wrecked.
9 June 1934: Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
9 June 1967: Dorothy Parker is cremated in New York. Her ashes remain in her lawyer's filing cabinet until 1988.
9 June 1975: First live radio transmission from the House of Commons.
10 June: Time Observance Day in Japan - in honour of punctuality.
10 June 1793: The world's first public zoo, the Jardin des Plantes, opens in Paris.
10 June 1829: The first Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race takes place from Hambledon Lock to Henley Bridge.
10 June 1909: The first SOS signal is sent out by SS Slavonia, a Cunard liner in trouble off the Azores.
10 June 1943: Laszlo Biro patents his new ballpoint pen.
10 June 1965: The first automatic landing made at Heath-row by a BEA de Havilland jet.
10 June 1988: A clergyman in the United States claims that a cartoon film shows Mickey Mouse snorting coke. This is officially denied with the explanation that he was sniffing flowers.
11 June 1509: King Henry VIII marries for the first time, to Catharine of Aragon.
11 June 1872: The last use of the stocks in England. Mark Tuck spends four hours in the Newbury stocks for insobriety and causing a disturbance in a parish church.
11 June 1907: Notts bowled out for 12 against Gloucestershire.
11 June 1953: Len Hutton becomes the first professional cricketer to captain England.
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