The week that was

A look back at the week ahead.

31 March 1820: The first American missionaries arrive in Honolulu.

31 March 1889: The Eiffel Tower opens in Paris, the tallest man-made structure on earth.

31 March 1901: Gottlieb Daimler names his new 53mph, 4-cylinder car after his daughter, Mercedes.

31 March 1947: The Bishop of London blames Hollywood for Britain's high divorce rate.

1 April 1902: France cuts the working day for women and children from 11 to 101/2 hours, with a commensurate cut in pay.

1 April 1909: Britain's first double-decker buses start operation in Widnes.

1 April 1946: Wartime restrictions are dropped on the use of elastic in a range of goods including underwear, nightwear, overwear, hose, short armlets, identification bracelets, pocket books, pram covers and umbrellas.

2 April 1801: Nelson, on HMS Elephant, puts the telescope to his blind eye and refuses to obey a command to withdraw from battle with Danish ships.

2 April 1873: British trains are fitted with lavatories, but only in sleeping cars.

2 April 1877: Zazel, the first human cannonball, makes her maiden flight at Westminster aquarium.

3 April: Feast day of St Pancras of Toarmina, who was sent in the first century to evangelise Sicily. He was said to have been very popular and was stoned to death by brigands. Not to be confused with the St Pancras who was martyred in Rome at the age of 14 in AD304, after whom the London railway station is named.

3 April 1882: Jesse James is shot by Bob Ford.

4 April 1887: Argonia, Kansas, elects Susanna Salter as the world's first woman mayor.

4 April 1911: Massachusetts State Legislature refuses women the right to vote.

4 April 1930: The Archbishop of Canterbury approves free discussion of sex.

4 April 1944: The publisher Victor Gollancz turns down Animal Farm as a "general attack" on Soviet policy.

5 April 1614: First sitting of the "addled parliament", which was dissolved on 7 June without having passed a single Bill.

5 April 1910: Kissing is banned on French railways on the grounds that it causes delay.