Happy Anniversary: A right royal week in history

SOME immemorable dates in the forthcoming week, traditionally an auspicious time for royal weddings, births, deaths and executions:

24 January:

1916: Conscription introduced in Britain.

1935: The Krueger brewing company of Virginia, USA, introduces beer in cans.

1938: Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is the first opera to be broadcast on BBC television.

1965: Death of Winston Churchill, 70 years to the day after the death of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.

25 January:

1533: Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn.

1915: Alexander Graham Bell sets a new world record for a long distance telephone call: 4,750 miles from New York to San Francisco.

1917: United States buys the Virgin Islands (formerly the Danish West Indies) for dollars 25m.

1947: Al Capone dies, aged 48, from a brain haemorrhage.

26 January:

Feast of Paula, patron saint of widows.

1788: Captain Arthur Phillip leads the first fleet of convict ships from England into Sydney Cove and modern Australia is born.

1875: The first battery- powered dentist's drill is patented by George F Green of Kalamazoo in Michigan, USA.

1956: Britain bans the import and export of heroin.

27 January:

1926: John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution in London.

1930: Female civil servants vote for compulsory retirement of women on marriage.

28 January:

1447: Birth of Henry VII.

1547: Death of Henry VIII.

1807: Pall Mall in London becomes the first street to be illuminated by gaslight.

1896: Walter Arnold of Kent is the first person to be fined for speeding. He was driving at 8mph in a 2mph built-up area.

1935: Iceland is the first country to legalise abortion.

1946: The first post-war bananas arrive in Britain.

29 January:

1886: Karl Benz patents the first reliable petrol-driven car.

1927: The Park Lane Hotel opens - the first hotel to offer a private bathroom for each bedroom.

1942: Vic Oliver is the first castaway on Desert Island Discs, introduced by Roy Plomley.

1958: The British Medical Association name cigarette smoking as the main cause of lung cancer.

1985: Oxford dons refuse an honorary degree to Margaret Thatcher.

30 January:

A bad day for world leaders: Charles I is beheaded (1649), Gandhi is assassinated (1948) and Hitler becomes Germany's chancellor (1933).

1932: Finland lifts prohibition on alcohol.