Happy Anniversary: Chloroform? We are not amused
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Your support makes all the difference.SOME of the less celebrated anniversaries of the coming week.
4 April:
1887: Argonia in Kansas elects Susanna Salter as the world's first female mayor.
1930: The Archbishop of Canterbury approves free discussion of sex.
1934: The first cat's-eye reflecting studs are embedded in a road near Bradford.
1988: The long-running television soap Crossroads ends after 24 years.
5 April:
1614: First sitting of the 'Addled Parliament' which was dissolved on 7 June without having passed a single bill.
1910: Kissing is banned on the French railways, because it is believed to cause delays.
1989: The Marie Stopes charity launches Sex Aid, suggesting the participants should donate 25p each time they make love.
6 April:
1917: US declares war on Germany.
1928: Handshaking is banned in Rome as unhygienic.
1944: Pay As You Earn taxation comes into force in Britain.
7 April:
1739: Dick Turpin is hanged at York. While in prison on a minor charge, he is identified as the highwayman by his handwriting.
1827: Friction matches, invented by John Walker, go on sale for the first time.
1832: James Thompson sells his wife in Carlisle. From an asking price of 50 shillings, he settles for 20 shillings and a Newfoundland dog.
1853: At the birth of Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria becomes the first member of the Royal Family to use chloroform.
1943: First synthesis of the psychedelic drug LSD.
1958: The Church of England gives its moral backing to family planning.
8 April:
1986: Film star Clint Eastwood is elected mayor of Carmel.
9 April:
1483: Death of Edward IV. French sources attribute his demise to mortification at the Treaty of Arras; the English blame excessive debauchery.
1747: Lord Lovat is the last person to be executed by beheading in England.
1970: Paul McCartney issues a writ to dissolve the Beatles' business partnership.
10 April:
1633: Bananas go on sale in Britain for the first time.
1849: The safety pin is patented by Walter Hunt of New York.
1858: The bell Big Ben is cast in Whitechapel and named after the commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall, who is also known as Big Ben.
1950: The head of the National Hairdressers Federation says that many men have longer hair than their wives.
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