An international team of eight surgeons stitched the hand of a dead man to the wrist of 48-year-old Clint Hallam (New Zealand) in 1998, after he had suffered a chainsaw accident nine years previously. The fourteen hour operation at Lyon, France involved attaching bones in the new hand to exposed bones in Hallam’s wrist. The bones were fixed using a metal plate with screws. Surgeons then stitched the two main arteries, the radial and cubital and upto 12 veins before connecting the nerves, muscles and Continue reading →

Charles Frederic Worth, who left London for Paris in 1846, set up his own business in 1858 at 7, rue de la Paix. He is attributed as being the first haute couturier as he was the first designer to present his designs to his clients, by getting real models to parade in them. Worth initially worked in the cloth trade, cutting dresses for his wife Marie. Until the arrival of haute courture, dressmakers and designers had controlled the design and production of ladies’ garments, creating Continue reading →

Often hailed as the ‘founding fathers of modern film’, the Lumiere Brothers, Louis and Auguste, can take credit for the first commercial exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in 1895, in the world’s first movie theatre – the Salon Indien, at the Grand Cafe on Paris’ Boulevard des Capucines. The 20-minute program included ten short films with twenty showings a day.

The first use of gender testing for athletes was in 1968 at the X Winter Olympics held in Grenoble, France.

Isabelle Dinoire (France) underwent the first partial face transplant at Amiens University Hospital, Amiens, France, on 27 November 2005. Ms Dinoire was left with severe facial disfigurement after her cross-labrador pet dog ripped off her nose, lips and chin trying to wake her after she accidentally overdosed on pills in May 2005. Surgeons worked through the night to remove the skin, fat and some blood vessels from the braindead donor and then placed them over the Ms Dinoire’s skull and muscle before re-connecting the blood Continue reading →

In 1992, at the XVI Olympiad in Albertville, France, skier Annelise Coberger (New Zealand) made history with a silver medal in the women’s slalom, becoming the first Winter Olympic medallist from the southern hemisphere.

The Winter Olympics were first held in Chamonix, France, between 25 January and 5 February 1924, and were originally established to support snow and ice-based sports not suited to the summer. In front of 10,004 paying spectators, a total of 247 men and 11 women competed across just 16 events that included speed skating, ice hockey, curling and ski jumping.

The record for the most consecutive ‘diving butterfly’ moves with a footbag is 35 and was set by Vasek Klouda (Czech Republic) on the set of L’Ete De Tous Les Records at Argeles Gazost, France on 6 July 2005.

Jose Ramón Iruretagoiena aka Izeta II (Spain) performed 22 lifts of a 100 kg stone in 1 minute on the set of ‘L’Ete de Tous Les Records’ in Soulac, France on 16 August 2005 and equalled his record on the set of ‘Lo show dei record’ in Madrid, Spain, on 16 February 2008.

11 min 35 sec Stephane Mifsud (France) Hyeres, France, 8 June 2009