Happy Anniversary: Nudists bare all in Brighton

Some of the more arcane anniversaries that you might otherwise overlook in the coming week:

9 August:

1932: Textile manufacturers Tootal Broadhurst Lee announce the first creaseproof fabric.

1979: Despite protests, Brighton opens Britain's first nudist beach.

10 August:

1787: Mozart completes Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

1965: The Queen cancels Kim Philby's OBE.

11 August:

Feast Day of St Clare, the patron saint of television.

1711: First race meeting at Ascot.

12 August:

1883: The world's last quagga dies in Amsterdam zoo.

1887: Edison recorded 'Mary had a little lamb' on a cylinder thereby launching the recording industry.

1949: Starlings perching on the minute hand of Big Ben cause it to lose four and a half minutes.

1980: The first panda cub born in captivity, in a zoo in Mexico.

13 August:

1908: When Enrico Caruso's wife runs off with another man, the great tenor says: 'It was the very thing I desired.'

1964: Peter Allen and John Walby become the last victims of judicial hanging in Britain.

14 August:

1893: France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration plates.

1908: The Pier Hippodrome, Folkestone, hosts the world's first international beauty contest. Miss Nellie Jarman, 18, wins from of a field of six English, three French, one Irish, one Austrian, one American and 'a number of fisher girls from Boulogne'.

1932: Death of Rin Tin Tin.

1941: Last execution (of a German spy) in the Tower of London.

1961: Start of the Berlin Wall.

1989: World's worst hot-air balloon disaster when 13 die in a collision near Alice Springs, Australia.

15 August:

1927: Length of cars is limited to 27ft 6in (8.3 metres) in Britain.

1971: Harvey Smith makes a two- finger gesture at the British show- jumping Derby. He is disqualified, but subsequently re-instated when it become clear that the sign may have been misinterpreted.