On 3 June 1982 Shlomo Argov the Israeli ambassador was shot whilst leaving a displomatic function at the Dorchester Hotel. The gunman fired two shots – one narrowly missing Mr Argov’s police protection officer and the other hitting the envoy in the head. The assailant was shot by the bodyguard, two others escaped but were arrested in Brixton. Robert Maxwell was in the hotel at the time, but, alas escaped unscathed.

On 3 June 1931 saw the world’s first outside broadcast as the BBC transmitted live pictures of the Epsom Derby using a single van-mounted camera

William Wallace, commemorated in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, was the first to suffer the ignominious fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered

The oldest church in the City All Hallows by the Tower was founded in 675 the undercroft has Roman pavement dating from the 2nd century

Tube has a unique species of mosquito identified by Queen Mary and Westfield College it feeds off rats and humans is unable to breed with other species

The night before the 1911 census suffragette Emily Davison hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons so she could claim that was her address

On 3 June 1970 Kink’s Ray Davies made round trip New York-London to change word in Lola (Coca-Cola to Cherry Cola) because of BBC commercial reference ban

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand was known as the home of chess, its serving practise-wheeling food out under silver domes-originates avoiding disturbing a game of chess

The Surbiton Club hired a ‘marker’ for its billiard room with an allowance of 18 gallons on beer a month, the first recruit, unsurprisingly was sacked for drunkenness

In cockney rhyming slang the Underground is known as the Oxo (Cube/ Tube), and there are only two tube station names that contain all five vowels: Mansion House, and South Ealing

By 1883 Fleet Street’s newspapers produced 15 morning dailies, 9 evening papers and 383 weekly publications, of which 50 were local rags

Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, was so taken with the Lambeth Walk that he hired an English girl to teach him the dance in Milan

Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.