Happy Anniversary: On with the tutu, off with everything else

SOME miscellaneous happenings of the coming week in history, including the centenary of the first professional strip-tease.

7 March

1876: Alexander Graham Bell is granted Patent No 174,465 for the first working telephone.

1900: Fire destroys the roof of Buckingham Palace.

1918: Bolsheviks change their name to Russian Communist Party.

1969: Victoria line opens on the London Underground.

8 March

1910: The first official pilots' licences are issued to J T C Moore Brabazon (later Lord Brabazon of Tara) in England and Elise Deroche (later Baroness de Laroche) in France.

1927: A 5,000-year-old manicure set is found in Iraq.

9 March

1562: Kissing in public is banned in Naples on penalty of death.

1796: Napoleon marries Josephine, the widow of Vicomte de Beauharnais.

1831: The French Foreign Legion is founded by King Louis Philippe.

1961: Russia successfully sends a dog up in a rocket, coincidentally on the 27th birthday of Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space later the same year.

1988: Death of Richard C Adams, an American who in 1940 became inventor of the paint-roller.

10 March

1886: First Cruft's Dog Show in London.

1906: The Bakerloo line opens on the London Underground from Baker Street to Waterloo.

1910: China abolishes slavery.

1974: A Japanese soldier is found on Lubang Island in the Philippines, still waiting to be relieved, unaware that the Second World War is over.

11 March

1682: The Royal Chelsea Hospital for Soldiers is opened by Charles II.

1702: The Daily Courant, England's first daily newspaper, is published, 229 years to the day before the birth of Rupert Murdoch.

1845: Henry Jones invents self- raising flour.

12 March

604: Death of St Gregory, after whom Gregorian chant is named.

1789: US Post Office established.

1832: The first ballet tutu is seen in public at the premiere of Les Sylphides.

1912: A Royal Commission reports that vivisection is morally acceptable.

1913: Canberra becomes the official capital of Australia.

1918: Moscow becomes the official capital of Russia.

1988: The pounds 1 note is no longer legal tender.

13 March

1781: Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, which he calls Georgius Sidus after George III.

1894: The Divan Fayonau Music Hall in Paris presents the first professional strip-tease, an act entitled 'Le Coucher d'Yvette'.

1930: Clyde Tombaugh announces the discovery of the planet Pluto.

1961: The old, large, black-and- white pounds 5 notes cease to be legal tender.