this is the week that was

5 February:

1924: First radio broadcast of the Greenwich time signal pips.

1948: Residents of Scarborough are fooled by Mr Hezekiah Johnson into thinking they have heard the first cuckoo. "I wait until a crowd gathers at a bus-stop," Mr Johnson confessed, "then go into the park and do the cuckoo. I used to do the nightingale when I had my teeth in."

6 February:

1665: Queen Anne born.

1685: Charles II dies.

1952: George VI dies.

1961: Danny Blanchflower becomes the first to say "No" when Eamonn Andrews greets him with "This is your Life".

7 February:

1938: Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is given an "A" certificate in Britain because the censors consider the wicked witch to be too frightening for unattended children to see.

1989: Sardines fall in a rainstorn over Ipswich, Australia. They had been sucked from the sea in an up-draught.

8 February:

1924: First execution by gas chamber in the United States.

1939: The House of Lords passes the "Bastardy Bill", making blood tests compulsory in paternity suits.

9 February:

1893: An artist's model named Mona performs the first (amateur) strip- tease at the Four Arts Ball at the Moulin Rouge.

10 February:

1354: Start of a three-day street battle between students and townsfolk in Oxford which leaves several dead.

1905: The State of Wisconsin imposes a tax on bachelors over the age of 30.

11 February:

1765: Wig-makers petition George III for compensation as wigs go out of fashion.

1852: Britain's first ladies' public lavatory opens in Bedford Street, London.

1899: First fatal motorcycle accident in Britain.