this is the week that was

6 November:

1814: Birth of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone.

1893: Death of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel.

7 November:

1783: John Austin, a forger, is hanged at Tyburn, the last public hanging in Britain.

1908: Professor Ernest Rutherford announces the detection of a single atom.

1974: Lord Lucan disappears.

8 November:

1913: The Salon d'Automne exhibition in Paris bans Cubism.

1920: First appearance of Rupert Bear.

1923: First Welsh language broadcast by the BBC.

1987: A Californian sentenced to 17 years for murder attempts to sue one of the jurors for falling asleep during his trial.

9 November:

1841: Birth of Albert Edward, first son of Queen Victoria, the last person to have been born heir to the British throne.

1859: Flogging is abolished in the British army.

10 November:

1885: Paul Daimler becomes the first motorcyclist, riding his father Gottlieb's invention for six miles.

1930: More than 30 people are injured in London as four elephants stampede during the Lord Mayor's show.

1994: 300,000 sperm samples are driven 4km across Paris in the first move of a sperm bank in Europe.

11 November:

1946: Stevenage becomes Britain's first "New Town".

1947: The Government increases vegetarians' potato rations.

1952: The first video recorder is demonstrated by John Mullin and Wayne Johnson.

12 November:

1859: Leotard, inventor of the flying trapeze, makes his debut, without a safety net, in Paris.

1928: The New Oxford Theatre opens in Manchester, the first cinema outside the US to show talking pictures.