300 Firsts

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Government



First woman president of Chile
Michelle Bachelet(2006)

First African elected woman head of state
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia(2005)

First woman Vice presidential nominee of a major US political party
Geraldine Ferraro (1984)

First woman to become president of UN general assembly
Vijayalakshmi Pandit (1953)

First woman US secretary of state
Madeleine Albright (1966)

Black woman to serve a US secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice (2005)

First woman to serve as US national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice (2001)

US first lady
Martha Washington (1789)

Britain’s first woman MP
Viscountess (Nancy) Astor, House of commons (1919 Nov 28)

First woman president of the Indian national congress
Annie Besant (1917)

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Government



First woman chief minister of a state in India
Sucheta Kripalini, Uttar Pradesh (1963-67)

First woman governor of a state in India
Srojini Naidu, united provinces (UP) (1947-49)

First woman speaker of the US house of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi (2007)

First woman deputy chairman of Indian Rajya Sabha
Violet Alva (1962-69)

First woman prime minister of Turkey
Tansu Ciller (1993 Jun 14)


Woman prime minister of Britain
Margaret Thatcher (1979 May o4)

First woman member of a US presidential cabinet
Frances Perkins, Secretary of labour under Franklin D. Roosevelt. (1933)

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Sports



First Asian city to host Olympics
Tokyo, Japan (1964)

First tour de France (road bicycle race) winner
Maurice Garin (1903)

First recognized boxing (fisticuffs) champion
Tim Hyer (1841)

World’s first chess champion
Wilhelm Steinitz (1886)

First golf club in the world
Honourable company of Edinburg Golfers (1744)

First footballer of the year
Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer. He was also the first European footballer to be knighted in 1965. (1948)

First man to run a mile under a minutes
British athlete Sir Roger Bannister. He established this record at lffley Road Track, Oxford in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds (1954)

First Indian Olympic team medal
Gold for Hockey. At Amsterdam beating the Netherlands (1928)

First Indian Olympic individual medal winner
K.D Jadhav, Bronze in wrestling at Helsinki (1952)

First athlete disqualified at the Olympics for drug us
Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall at the mexico summer Olympics (1968)

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Sports



The first cricket club
Cricket club founded in Hambeldon, a village in southern England (1750)

First Indian cricket tournament
The Bombay Triangular which late became the Bombay Quadrangular (1912)

First Indian cricket test match
Against England at Lord’s (1932)

First Indian cricket captain
CK Nayudu, for the tour of England (1932)

First Indian cricketer to score a century
Lala Amarnath, against England in South Bomaby. He was also independent India’s first test captain leading a tour of Australia in 1947-48 (1933)

First Indian cricketer to score a triple century
Virender Sehwag, against Pakistan at Multan(2004)

First Indian hat-trick in test cricket
Harbhajan Singh, against Australia (2001)

First Indian batsman to complete 10,000 runs
Sunil Gavaskar. He was first in the world to achieve this

First Indian Tennis Grand Slam title
Mahesh Bhupathi, partnering with Japanese Rika Hiraki, in the mixed doubles category of the French Open (1997)

First Indian woman to appear in an olympic final
P.T Usha, Los angeles olympics (1984)

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Sports



First woman to win an Olympic gold medal
Charlotte Cooper, UK, Tennis singles (1900)

First professional woman bullfighter
Patrica McCormick (1952)

First American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics
Wilma Rudolph, Rome Olympics (1960 Sep 7)

First women’s Olympic marathon champion
Joan Benoit, Los Angels Summer Olympics (1984)

First Indian woman to win a round at a Grand Slam
Nirupama Vaidyanathan beat Italain Gloria Pizzichini in the first round of the Australian Open (1998)

Indian woman in the third round (highest so far) of a tennis Grand Slam event
Sania Mirza, singles category of the Australian open (2005 Jan)

First woman black tennis player to win a singles title at Wimbledon
Althea Gibson (1957)

First woman chess grandmaster of India
S.Vijayalakshmi (2000)

First Indian woman to win a individual gold medal to win a Grand Slam
Maureen Catherne (“Little Mo”) Connolly (1953)

First Indian to win an individual Olympic gold
Abhinav Bindra (2008)

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Adventure



First man to fly solo non stop across the Atlantic
Charles Lindbergh(1927)

First person to fly faster than the speed of sound
Charles Elwood Chuck Yeagar, he flew a Bell X-1 rocket at 670 mph in level flight (1947)

First man to reach the South Pole
Roald AMun-dse, Norwegian explorer and team (1911)

First person to swim across the English channel
Mathew Webb(1875)

First person to cross AntarcticCircle
James Cook (1773)

First humans to fly
Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier. In this first manned balloon flight in the world they were airborne in a hot-air balloon for 20 minutes in Paris at height of 3000 ft and traveled 7 miles (1783)

First balloonist to fly solo nonstop around the world
Steve Fossett, U.S. He launched from northern, West Australia, on June 19 and returned to Qeensland, Australia, after 14 days, 19hrs. He broke three balloon records along the way, fastest time around the world, longest distance flown solo, and longest time flown solo(2002)

First man to cross the Pacific Ocean in hot air balloon
Ben Abruzzo and team in the Double Eagle V (1981)

First people to sight the North Pole
Roald Amundsen and his sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship ‘Norge’ pioloted by Umberto Nobile (1926)

First people to reach the North Pole
Lt.Col.Joseph O. Fletcher and Lt.William P.Benedict landed their plane (1952)

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Adventure


First successful conquest of Mount Everest
Tenzing Norgay & Sir Edmund Hillary (New Zealand) via the South-East Ridge Route (1953)

First conquer of Everest via the North Ridge
Chinese team (1960)

First American to conquer the Everest
James Whittaker (1963)

First person to conquer the Everest twice
Nawag Gombu Sherpa. Both of his ascents were via the South east ridge (1965)

First ascent of Everest without bottle oxygen
Peter Haneler (Austria) and Reinhold Messner, (Italy) via the South
East Ridge (197

First couple to conquer the Everest together
Andrej & Marija Stremfelj, Slovenia. Marija was also the first Slovenian woman to climb Everest (1990)

First son of a mountaineer to climb the Everest
Peter Hillary, New Zealand (1990)

First father and son to climb the Everest together
Jean Noel Roche and his son Roche Bertrand aka Zebulon (1990)

First conquest of Everest by two brothers together
Alberto and Felix Inurrategui (1992)

First Pakistani to conquer the Everest
Nazir Sabir (2000)

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Adventure


First blind person to conquer the Everest
Erik Weihenmayer, USA(2001)

First person with only one arm to climb the Everest
American Gary Guller (2003)

First nonstop solo flight around the world without refueling
Steve Fossett flew the Virgin Atlantic Globalflyer around the world From Salina, Kansas. It covered 22,878 in 67 hrs (2005)

First round the world solo fight
Wiley post took a Locheed Vega, Winnie Mae, 15,596 mi around the world in 7 days, 18hr. (1933)

First woman to fly solo
Bessica Medlar Raiche. She flew in an airplane her husband built of bamboo, wire and silk (1910)

First woman to fly solo around the world

Jerrie Fredritz Mock. She made the flight in 29 days flying 22,860 miles. (1964)

First woman to fly solo across the English channel
Harriet Quimby, from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France, in a monoplane. She was later killed in a flying accident.(1912 April 16)

First woman to climb Everest without bottle oxygen
Lydia Bradey of New Zealand (1988 Nov 24)

First woman to climb from the North (Tibet) side
Phantog, a Tibetan woman, reached the summit only a few days after Junko, becoming the second woman to summit Everest(1975 May 27)

First European woman to climb Everest
Wanda Rutkiewicz. She was the third woman to summit Everest(1978)

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Adventure



First Asian woman to swim across the English channel
Arati Saha, India (1959 Sep 29)

First woman to climb Everest
Junko Tabei of Japan via the South East Ridge (1975 May 16)

First Indian woman to climb Everest
Bachendri Pal. She was the 5th woman in the world to achieve this (1984 May 23)

First woman to conquer Everest twice
Santhosh Yadav, India (1993 May 10)

First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
Amelia Earhart, from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Ireland in 15 hrs. (1932 May)

First woman to swim the English channel
Getrude Ederle, in 14 hours and 39 minutes and she broke the existing men’s record. (1926 Aug 03)

First Indian woman to swim across seven seas of the world
Bula Choudhary, India. She was the first Indian woman to cross English channel twice. (2004)

First Indian woman to reach Antarctica
Meher Moos (1976)

First woman to set foot on North Pole
Ann Bancroft, USA (1986)

First woman to sail around the world solo in under 100days
Ellen MacArthur, English Sailor (2001)

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Science



The first and only supersonic airliner
Concorde, twice the speed of sound, about 2, 170 kph (1969)

The first mechanical computer was conceived by
Charles Babbage (1835)

First person ever to transmit speech from one point of another by electrical means
Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish bacteriologist (1876)

First antibiotic drug
Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming, Scottish bacteriologist (1928)

First algorithm written for a computer
Ada Byron’s (Ada Lovelace) notes on the analytical engine of Charles Babbage. She is regarded as the first computer programmer (1842)

First compact disc (CD)
Jointly developed by two companies, Sony and Philips (1978)

First sound recording
Thomas Alva Edison’s phonograph was the first instrument used for recording sound (1877)

First Atom Bomb
“Little Boy” dropped over Hiroshima by the US during the second world war (1945)

First submatine
Built by Cornelius Drebbel, Dutch inventor and scientist (1620)