* 1849 – The first air raid in history.

* 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program.

To the infantryman, there may be little to distinguish between combat as part of a minor raid or as a major offensive, nor is it likely that he anticipates the future course of the battle ; few of the British infantry who went over the top on the first day on the Somme, July 1, 1916, would have anticipated that they would be fighting the same battle in five months ' time.

Remains of the Darwin Post Office after the first Japanese raid in 1942

* 1927 – Augusto César Sandino leads a raid on U. S. Marines and Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional that had been sent to apprehend him in the village of Ocotal, but is repulsed by one of the first dive-bombing attacks in history.

* 1944 – World War II: Bombing of Tokyo – The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.

In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire.

While there are few records, the Vikings are thought to have led their first raids in Scotland on the holy island of Iona in 794, the year following the raid on the other holy island of Lindisfarne, Northumbria.

Polisario made the weak Mauritanian army its main target, and after a bold raid on the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott ( where a gunshot killed El-Ouali, the first president of the SADR ), Mauritania succumbed to internal unrest.

While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist ( particularly of Composition II ), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930s resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions.

* June 13 – WWI: The first major German bombing raid on London leaves 162 dead and 432 injured.

** WWII: USAAF bombers make their first raid on Italy.

* January 27 – WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany ( Wilhelmshaven is the target ).

* 793: The first written account of a Viking raid carried out on the abbey of Lindisfarne in northern England.

* July 24 – Vietnam War: Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are targeted by antiaircraft missiles, in the first such attack against American planes in the war.

* The Vikings first raid Dorestad ( present-day Netherlands ).

American author Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five is based on his first hand experience of the raid as a POW.

A chance encounter with a street prostitute ( Erin O ' Brien-Moore ) hiding from a police raid leads to his first bestseller, Nana, an exposé of the steamy underside of Parisian life.

The first camp essentially agrees with Gibbon, and the other argues that the Battle has been massively overstated — turned from a raid in force to an invasion, and from a mere annoyance to the Caliph to a shattering defeat that helped end the Islamic Expansion Era.

The first German raid on London, on 7 September 1940, killed about one thousand civilians, mostly in the East End.

The first drawing of Brighthelmstone was made in 1545 and depicts what is believed to be the raid of 1514.

Britain's first airborne assault took place on February 10, 1941 when, what was then known as II Special Air Service ( some 37 men of 500 trained in No. 2 Commando plus three Italian interpreters ), parachuted into Italy to blow up an aqueduct in a daring raid named Operation Colossus.

Britain ’ s first airborne assault took place on February 10, 1941, when ' X ' Troop, No 11 Special Air Service Battalion ( which was formed from No 2 Commando and subsequently became 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment ) dropped into southern Italy from converted Whitley bombers flying from Malta and demolished a span of the aqueduct near Tragino in a daring night raid named Operation Colossus.

The first raid backfires because the team is unaware that the temple they plan to rob has been built of laser-reflecting crystal, which turns their beams back on themselves.

But her prettiness was what he had noticed first, and all the other things had come afterward: cruelty, meanness, self-will.

There was an artificial lake just out of sight in the first stand of trees, fed by a half dozen springs that popped out of the ground above the hillside orchard.

The first part of the road was steep, but it leveled off after the second bend and curled gradually into the valley.

No one was behind it, but in the rear wall of the office I noticed, for the first time, a door which had been left partially open.

The herd was watered and then thrown onto a broad grass flat which was to be the first night's bedground.

Once again, Tom Horn was the first and most likely suspect, and he was brought in for questioning immediately.

For Matilda, it was the first she had known in many a night.

Even the knowledge that she was losing another boy, as a mother always does when a marriage is made, did not prevent her from having the first carefree, dreamless sleep that she had known since they dropped down the canyon and into Bear Valley, way, way back there when they were crossing those other mountains.

Stevens was grunting over the last empty pocket when Russ abruptly rose and lunged toward Carmer's hat, which had tumbled half-a-dozen feet away when he first fell.

The Indian's arm whipped sidewise -- there was a flash of amber and froth, the crash of the bottle shattering against the side of the first car.

It was her first smile.

At first, I thought he was out of his head, talking wildly like this.

Hell, I gave him the first decent job he ever had, six, seven -- how many years ago was it, Rob ''??

Miss Langford ( her first name was Evelyn ) was an attractive girl.

School began in August, the hottest part of the year, and for the first few days Miss Langford was very lenient with the children, letting them play a lot and the new ones sort of get acquainted with one another.

It was just as well that the ignorant Dandy enjoyed himself to the hilt that first evening, for the room was to become his prison cell.

`` Bastards '', he would say, `` all I did was put a beat to that Vivaldi stuff, and the first chair clobbered me ''!!

In 1961 the first important legislative victory of the Kennedy Administration came when the principle of national responsibility for local economic distress won out over a `` state's-responsibility '' proposal -- provision was made for payment for unemployment relief by nation-wide taxation rather than by a levy only on those states afflicted with manpower surplus.

The first systematic thinking about this Pandora's box within Pandora's boxes was done four years ago by Fred Ikle, a frail, meek-mannered Swiss-born sociologist.

The smell at first was more surprising than unpleasant.

His collaboration with Washington, begun when he was the general's aide during the Revolution, was resumed when he entered the first Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury.