Example sentences of "[was/were] the first [noun sg] [prep] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Or could it be that you were the first rebel in the household and that Suzie 's only following your example ? ’ |
| 2 | The Sun agreements were the first part of a strategy devised by Adobe 's four month-old Display Products Group to take the Unix field by storm — and there remains the Interactive Systems Unix side of Sun 's business to be mopped up , Ybarra reminds us . |
| 3 | We were the first back into the changing-rooms and we dumped our holsters and visors on the folding table near the door . |
| 4 | The 1980s , he notes , were the first decade in history in which there was no increase in the area of land farmed and — also for the first time — a fall in the amount of fresh water used per capita . |
| 5 | We were the first union in nineteen seventy six to come out with our policy on the then Race Relations Act it 's always been a trade union issue whether it was the trade unions in Germany in the twenties and thirties fighting Hitlerism and Nazi-ism or whether it was the trade unions fighting Moseley and his black shirts in Britain it has always been part of our ideals and principles . |
| 6 | In the evening they went walking , hand in hand , as if it were the first love for each of them . |
| 7 | They were the first couple in parliamentary history to sit on a front bench together in either House . |
| 8 | This parallels the trampling experiment described above where the skulls were the first element to be broken . |
| 9 | Their ecological dominance and biological success for the past 80 to 100 million years may stem from the fact that they were the first group of predatory social insects that both foraged and lived in the realm of rotting vegetation on the ground . |
| 10 | Leeds were the first club to be thrown out of Europe . |
| 11 | The balance of trade in manufacturing swung from a surplus of £2.75 billion in 1979 to a deficit in 1984 of £3.75 billion and the years 1983 and 1984 were the first time in history that Britain 's trade balance was in the red on manufactures . |
| 12 | Isolated primary non-Hodgkin 's lymphoma of the oesophagus seems to be exceptionally rare ; in both reported cases , oesophageal lesions were the first manifestation of the disease . |
| 13 | We were the first farm in the area , I think , to make silage . |
| 14 | The Dutchmen of New Amsterdam were the first community of any substance outside the British Isles to be absorbed into England 's possession by conquest but they were close enough to the English in religion — the line of really intense division between groups in the seventeenth century — for there to be no prolonged resistance . |
| 15 | In April there was the first deficit on the visible trade account for 10 years ; for the first four months of 1991 the deficit was DM12,000 million ( compared with a surplus for 1990 as a whole of DM77,000 million ) . |
| 16 | It 's like Miss , when she walks from the staff office to here , she could have four conversations and when she gets here she thinks what was the first conversation about again ? |
| 17 | The report , from a correspondent in Bangkok , stated that this was the first occasion since the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia in September 1989 [ see pp. 36881-82 ] that Vietnamese forces had been used in anything more than an emergency capacity . |
| 18 | The centre of the discussion was the school curriculum ; and it was frequently observed at the time that this was the first occasion on which politicians or the public at large had concerned themselves with what had hitherto been a wholly professional matter . |
| 19 | I had been along this track many times , and this was the first occasion on which I hesitated to pass the rocks . |
| 20 | It was the first occasion on which the atomic constitution of matter had been recognised as producing visible effects . |
| 21 | So far as I am aware , this was the first occasion on which it was made clear that the period which elapses before a prisoner serving a life sentence is released is determined by consideration of two factors , namely : ( i ) the period necessary to satisfy retribution and deterrence , which has come to be called ‘ the tariff ; ’ and ( ii ) a possible further period if it is thought by the Parole Board and/or the Secretary of State that the prisoner would pose an unacceptable risk of danger to the public were he to be released at the end of his tariff period . |
| 22 | This was the first occasion on which the ancestors of the modern Slovenes found themselves included in a political unit which extended into central Europe . |
| 23 | On Nov. 27 , 1989 , mujaheddin representatives handed over two Soviet prisoners of war to the Soviet ambassador to Pakistan in Peshawar ; this was the first occasion on which the rebel forces had released any Soviet prisoners . |
| 24 | The Judaization of Jerusalem had been under way since the Israelis occupied the whole city in 1967 , but this was the first occasion on which Jews had moved into the Christian Quarter . |
| 25 | It was the first occasion on which the country had voted since Gen. Manuel Noriega was removed from power by US forces in December 1989 and replaced by President Guillermo Endara Gallimany [ see pp. 37112-13 ] . |
| 26 | It was the first occasion on which the giant warship 's guns had been fired in action since the Korean war . |
| 27 | The engagement was the first occasion on which the US had admitted to the capture of enemy ground units inside Iraqi-controlled territory . |
| 28 | Abe 's arrest was the first occasion on which a serving Diet member had been arrested on bribery charges since the Lockheed scandal of 1976 . |
| 29 | The conference , which included all 10 of the country 's provincial premiers , representatives of the federal government and territorial and native leaders , was the first occasion on which the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec had participated in direct constitutional negotiations since the collapse of the Meech Lake accord in 1990 [ see pp. 37519-20 ] . |
| 30 | This was the first occasion on which such a figure had been published by the Chinese authorities . |