This week in history

January 10th
1840 - Penny Post mail service began.This revolutionary idea introduced the world's first pre-paid postage label - the stamp.
1863 - The Metropolitan Railway opened in London - the first underground railway system in the world.
1918 - The House of Lords approved the Representation of the People Act giving women over the age of 30 the right to vote.

January 11th
1928 - death of the author Thomas Hardy. Although the author was buried in Westminster Abbey his heart was buried separately in his beloved Wessex.
1935 - Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
1974 - the first surviving sextuplets born in Cape Town, South Africa.

January 12th
1881 - the first public power station in the world opened in London - it supplied power to 30 homes.
2001 - Sven Goren Erickson became the first foreign manager of the England football team.
2010 - A massive earthquake devastated Haiti killing an estimated 230,000 and making 1 million people homeless.

January 13th
1893 - the Labour Party was founded following an alliance of British trade union and socialist movements.
1926 - Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington Bear, was born.
1982 - an Air Florida jet plunged into the frozen Potomac River in Washington, close to the White House, with the loss of 78 lives.

January 14th
1742 - death of Astronomer Royal Sir Edward Halley who gave his name to Halley's Comet.
1814 - London's last Frost fair began on the frozen River Thames.
1874 - Queen Victoria witnessed a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell's new invention - the telephone.

January 15th
1559 - Elizabeth 1 crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey.
1759 - British Museum opened.
1929 - Martin Luther King (American Civil Rights leader) born.
1971 - the currency of Britain changed from pounds, shillings and pence to the decimal pound.
2009 - US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to carry out an emergency landing into the Hudson River in New York - all passengers and crew survived.

January 16th.
1547 - Ivan the Terrible was crowned as the first Tsar of Russia.
1920 - Prohibition began in the United States. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution banned the consumption of alcohol.
1937 - Nylon - a new "miracle yarn" made entirely from chemicals - was patented by the Du Pont Company.