By Tim Lambert
In 690 AD, Empress Wu Zetian became the first woman to rule China.
In 1678, Elena Piscopia became the first woman in the world to gain a Ph.D.
In 1725, Catherine I became the first woman to rule Russia.
In 1783, two men, Jean-François de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes, made the first untethered balloon flight.
In 1784, James Tytler became the first man in Britain to fly in a balloon.
In 1784, a 13-year-old boy named Edward Warren became the first person in the USA to fly in a balloon.
In 1785, John Jeffries and Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first flight across the English Channel in a balloon.
In 1785, Richard Crosbie became the first man in Ireland to fly in a balloon.
In 1797, Andre-Jacques Gernerin became the first man to parachute. He parachuted from a balloon 3,280 feet high.
In 1846, Robert Liston became the first man in Britain to operate with ether. He amputated a person’s leg.
In 1847, Thomas Martin Easterly became the first man to photograph lightning.
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the USA to qualify as a doctor.
1849 James Polk became the first US president to have his photograph taken.
In 1866, Lucy B. Hobbs became the first woman in the USA to qualify as a dentist.
In 1875, Matthew Webb became the first man to swim across the English Channel.
In 1883, Susan Hayhurst became the first woman in the USA to graduate from a Pharmacy college.
In 1886, Thomas Stevens became the first man to travel around the world by bicycle.
In 1895, Frank Duryea won the first car race in the USA.
In 1896, Walter Arnold became the first driver in Britain to be fined for speeding. He was fined one shilling.
In 1897, a taxi driver named George Smith became the first person in Britain to be arrested for drunk driving after he drove into a building.
In 1905, Arthur MacDonald became the first man to drive a car at more than 100 miles per hour.
In 1909, Louis Bleriot became the first man to fly across the English Channel.
In 1910, Claude Grahame-White became the first man to fly a plane at night.
In 1910, Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to gain a pilot’s licence.
In 1911, Eleanor Davies-Colley became the first woman fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons
In 1912, Henri Seimet became the first man to fly non-stop from Paris to London.
In 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
In 1913, Adolphe Pegond became the first person to jump from a plane with a parachute.
In 1925, Florence R. Sabin became the first woman elected to the US National Academy of Sciences.
In 1929, Richard E. Byrd became the first man to fly over the South Pole.
In 1929, a Swiss, Walter Mittelholzer, became the first man to fly over Mount Kilimanjaro.
In 1930, Fred P. Newton became the first man to swim the length of the Mississippi River.
In 1930, Nellie Jay became the first cow to fly.
In 1931 two men, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer became the first people to enter the stratosphere. In an aluminium capsule attached to a hydrogen balloon, they rose to 51,770 feet (15,781 metres).
In 1932, James Markham became the first man to patent a tree after he bred a new peach tree.
In 1933, Wiley Post became the first man to fly around the world solo.
In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound.
In 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound.
In 1955, Louise Arner Boyd became the first woman to fly over the North Pole.
In 1955, Barbara Mandell became the first woman to read the news on British TV.
In 1963, a French cat called Felicette became the first cat in space.
In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space.
In 1969, Robin Knox-Johnston became the first man to sail around the world solo and non-stop.
In 1972, John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook became the first people to row across the Atlantic.
In 1973, two spiders called Anita and Arabella became the first spiders in space.
In 1978, Naomi James became the first woman to sail around the world single-handed.
In 1983, Dick Smith became the first man to fly around the world solo in a helicopter
In 1986, Patrick Morrow became the first man to climb the highest mountain on all seven continents.
In 1991, Helen Jarman became the first British person in space.
In 1999, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones became the first men to circumnavigate the world non-stop by balloon.
In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to climb Mount Everest.
In 2005, Steve Fossett became the first man to fly around the world, non-stop, solo, and without refuelling mid-flight.
In 2012, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall. He jumped from a balloon at a height of almost 128,000 feet.
And a few people who were the last!
In 1830, Peter James Bossy became the last person in Britain to stand in the pillory. (The pillory was a wooden frame on a pole with holes through which a person’s head and hands were placed. It was abolished in 1837).
I often used to hear ‘you will be hanged from the nearest yardarm’. The last person to be hanged from a yardarm was a marine called John Dalinger. He was hanged from the yardarm of a ship called HMS Leven on 13 July 1860.
In 1887, Jules-Albert de Dion won a car race in Paris. Sadly, he also came last as he was the only entrant.