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.