Find the Firsts

Featured

On March 22, 1893, the first women’s college basketball game is played at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. *(Image source: Smith College)*

Category	Subcategory	Statistic	Source
Technology	First computer programmer	In 1843 mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote in her notes for a translation of a French article about the Analytical Engine how the machine could be used to follow a program to calculate Bernoulli numbers. For this, she has been called the first computer programmer.	https://www.britannica.com/technology/Analytical-Engine
Space	First human in space	On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-man-in-space
Space	First woman in space	Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made history as the first woman in space aboard the then-Soviet Union’s Vostok 6 spacecraft in 1963.	https://www.itu.int/en/myitu/News/2021/04/12/07/19/Women-in-space-history-International-Day-Human-Space-Flight
Literature	First book ever written	The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest-known written story that can be called a book. It was written in ancient Sumeria sometime prior to the 18th century B.C. on clay tablets.	https://www.reference.com/world-view/first-book-ever-made-f7c1de44dbcf61f8
Space	First human on the moon	On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon.	https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/first-person-on-moon.html
Ecommerce	First thing sold on the Internet	What likely counts as the very first legitimate online transaction goes to Dan Kohn in August 1994, who creating a website called NetMarket, the Shopify video reports. On August 11, Kohn sold a CD of Sting’s "Ten Summoner’s Tales" to a friend in Philadelphia, writes Peter H. Lewis wrote for The New York Times. Kohn’s friend paid $12.48 plus shipping, and he used data encryption software to send his credit card number securely.	https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-was-first-thing-sold-internet-180957414/#:~:text=What%20likely%20counts%20as%20the,for%20The%20New%20York%20Times.
Technology	First telephone call	March 10, 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant from the next room.	https://www.wired.com/2008/03/dayintech-0310/
Comics	First superhero	Created by Lee Falk (USA), the first superhero was Mandrake the Magician, who debuted in his own newspaper comic strip on June 11, 1934.	https://www.statsfind.com/who-was-the-first-superhero-in-comics/
Comics	First superheroine	Two comic-book characters have a claim to being the first female superhero. Fantomah was the first female superhero with superhuman powers to appear in print, in Jungle Comics #2 (Feb 1940). The first masked and costumed superheroine (and of “natural” birth), however, was the Woman in Red, created by Richard Hughes and George Mandel for Thrilling Comics #2 (Mar 1940).	https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/products/books/superlatives/superhero-timeline
Technology	First automobile, First car	Who invented the first automobile (car)? There were two inventors: Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Daimler. The two men, who had never met previously, filed their patents on the same day—January 29, 1886—in two different German cities. Benz’s three-wheeled vehicle, which he first drove in 1885, was the first to combine an internal combustion engine with an integrated chassis, while Daimler’s motorized carriage (invented with his collaborator, Wilhelm Maybach) was the world’s first four-wheeled automobile and featured the first high-speed gasoline engine.	https://www.history.com/news/who-built-the-first-automobile
Technology	First website	The very first website was info.cern.ch and went live in 1991 to provide information on the World Wide Web Project led by Berners-Lee.	https://websitesetup.org/news/how-many-websites-are-there/
Space	First animal in space	The first animal to make an orbital spaceflight around the Earth was the dog Laika, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957.	https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sad-story-laika-space-dog-and-her-one-way-trip-orbit-1-180968728/
Nobel Prize	First Nobel Prize in Physics	The Nobel Prize in Physics 1901 was awarded to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him."	https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1901/summary/
Nobel Prize	First Nobel Prize in Chemistry	The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1901 was awarded to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions."	https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1901/summary/
Nobel Prize	First Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine	The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1901 was awarded to Emil Adolf von Behring "for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria, by which he has opened a new road in the domain of medical science and thereby placed in the hands of the physician a victorious weapon against illness and deaths."	https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1901/summary/
Nobel Prize	First Nobel Prize in Literature	The Nobel Prize in Literature 1901 was awarded to Sully Prudhomme "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."	https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1901/summary/
Nobel Prize	First Nobel Peace Prize	The Nobel Peace Prize 1901 was divided equally between Jean Henry Dunant "for his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers and create international understanding" and Frédéric Passy "for his lifelong work for international peace conferences, diplomacy and arbitration."	https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1901/summary/
Military	First woman to fight in a US war	A hero of the American Revolution, Margaret Cochran Corbin was the first woman to receive a military pension. On November 16, 1776, Corbin dressed as a man and joined her husband in the Battle of Fort Washington on Manhattan Island. There, she helped him load his cannon, and when he was killed, she quickly and heroically took over firing the cannon against the British.	https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/educational-magazines/corbin-margaret-cochran
Monarchy	First King of England	The first king of all of England was Athelstan (895-939 AD) of the House of Wessex, grandson of Alfred the Great and 30th great-granduncle to Queen Elizabeth II.	https://www.history.com/news/british-royal-family-monarchy-facts
Technology	First human voice recorded First song recorded	The oldest recorded human voice is a ten-second fragment of the French folk song 'Au Clair de la Lune'. It was recorded on 9 April 1860 by inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (France).	https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-voice-recording
Motorsport	First Daytona 500	Lee Petty, the driver of the No. 42 Oldsmobile, poses in front of his car after winning the first 1959 Daytona 500 race at the Daytona International Speedway on February 25, 1959. Petty was not awarded the trophy until three days later after officials thought Johnny Beauchamp was the winner.	https://www.nascar.com/gallery/complete-daytona-500-winner-history/#photo-2
Politics	First Black US President	On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeats Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first African American elected to the White House.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/barack-obama-elected-as-americas-first-black-president
Sports	First Black major league baseball player	Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first African American to play pro baseball, six decades before Jackie Robinson The first varsity baseball team of Oberlin College in Ohio poses for a group portrait in 1881. Moses Fleetwood Walker (no. 6 in the middle row) and his brother Weldy (no. 10) were the first blacks to play major league baseball for Toledo when Toledo was a major league team in 1884.	https://theundefeated.com/features/moses-fleetwood-walker-was-the-first-african-american-to-play-pro-baseball-six-decades-before-jackie-robinson/#:~:text=Moses%20Fleetwood%20Walker%20was%20the,before%20Jackie%20Robinson%20%E2%80%94%20The%20Undefeated
Media and Entertainment	First film actor	Andrew Shail, senior lecturer in film at Newcastle University, has uncovered what appears to be the first film-star marketing: a poster for a Pathé Frères’ film featuring Max Linder called Le Petit Jeune Homme, released in Europe in September 1909.“This makes Linder – as far as we can tell – the first film star anywhere,” says Shail. Previously the title of “first film star” had been bestowed on the American actor Florence Lawrence, known to the public only as the Biograph Girl until Carl Laemmle hired her for his IMP studio in 1910.	https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/22/fame-at-last-was-this-the-worlds-first-film-star
Politics	First woman with presidential power in the United States	For 85 minutes on Friday, November 19, 2021, Kamala Harris became the first woman with presidential power in the United States.	https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/19/politics/kamala-harris-presidential-power/index.html
Technology	The first chatbot	The first chatbot (Eliza) dates to 1966, which makes it older than the Internet.	https://www.chatbot.com/blog/chatbot-statistics/
Technology Business	The first commercial movie	On December 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. The entrepreneurial siblings screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-commercial-movie-screened
Technology	The first telegram	On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!” Just a decade after the first line opened, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph cable crisscrossed the country.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/what-hath-god-wrought
Currency	First Black Woman to Have Her Likeness Depicted on a US Coin	The writer and poet Maya Angelou has become the first Black woman to have her likeness depicted on the quarter, the first in a series of coins commemorating pioneering American women that began shipping Monday, January 10, 2022. While Lady Liberty was depicted as a Black woman on a $100 commemorative coin in 2017, Maya Angelou is the first real-life woman.	https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/us/maya-angelou-quarter.html
Politics	First Female Prime Minister of India	On January 19, 1966, Indira Gandhi became India's first female prime minister. Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the independent Republic of India. She became a national political figure in 1955, when she was elected to the executive body of the Congress Party.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/indira-gandhi-becomes-indian-prime-minister
Politics	First woman named US Chief of Protocol, First Honorary US Foreign Service Officer	On February 10, 2014, Shirley Temple dies at age 85. Temple remains the youngest recipient of an Oscar, receiving one at age six. She became the first woman named U.S. Chief of Protocol. In 1988, she was also the first person appointed as Honorary U.S. Foreign Service Officer. keywords: dead celebrities	https://www.biography.com/news/shirley-temple-biography-facts
Politics	First Black Woman Nominated to the US Supreme Court	On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Brown is poised to become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.	https://time.com/6146624/history-first-black-woman-supreme-court-justice-nominee/
Sports	First Women's College Basketball Game	On March 22, 1893, the first women’s college basketball game is played at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. With each made basket counting as one point and the game lasting two 15-minute halves, a sophomore class team prevails over a freshmen team, 5-4. This first women’s college basketball game was organized by the college's gymnastics instructor, Lithuanian immigrant Senda Berenson, less than two years after the invention of the game in late 1891 by Dr. James Naismith. Berenson’s rules were adapted from Naismith’s rules for men, making basketball one of the rare sports that developed the male and female versions on a parallel timeline. The first women's intercollegiate game, between Stanford and Cal, was played in 1896.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-womens-college-basketball-game-smith-college
Media and Entertainment	First Animated Film to Win an Oscar	DreamWorks Animation's 'Shrek' was released 21 years ago today on May 18, 2001. 'Shrek' was nominated for two Academy Awards (Animated Feature Film and Adapted Screenplay) and went on to become the first ever winner of the Animated Feature Film Oscar.	https://www.britannica.com/topic/DreamWorks-Animation#ref1256758
Automobiles	First Ford Car Buyer	On July 15, 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later. Ford gathered a group of 12 stockholders, including himself, to sign the papers necessary to form the Ford Motor Company in mid-June 1903. In an assembly room measuring 250 by 50 feet, the first Ford Model A went into production that summer. The Model A could accommodate two people side-by-side on a bench; it had no top and was painted red. The car’s biggest selling point was its engine, which at two cylinders and eight horsepower was the most powerful to be found in a passenger car. It had relatively simple controls, including two forward gears that the driver operated with a foot pedal, and could reach speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. Within two months, the company had sold 215 Fords, and by the end of its first year the Mack Avenue plant had turned out some 1,000 cars.	https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-motor-company-takes-its-first-order