On 5 September 1975, two people were killed and 63 injured when a suspected IRA bomb exploded in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane. A warning was sent to the Daily Mail just before midday, but the police were unable to evacuate the building before it exploded just after 12.15 p.m.
On 5 September 1988 No Sex Please We’re British the West End’s longest running comedy closed after 16 years and 6,671 performances
Thomas Cromwell, Vicar-General for Henry VIII, introduced a scheme where each parish, in the presence of the warders, must record all baptisms, marriages and burials
In 1831 London became the first city in the world to have 1 million inhabitants only overtaken in size by Tokyo 126 years later
When Guy Fawkes was executed hanging broke his neck preventing the drawing and quartering (removing his intestines, arms and legs) while alive
When entering The Houses of Parliament its Members are still banned from wearing a suit of armour under an Act made by Edward II in 1313
Lions of Trafalgar Square were sculpted from life artist Landseer used dead lions from London Zoo until neighbours complained of the smell
The London Eye can carry 800 people each rotation comparable to 11 double decker buses receives on average more visitors per year than the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramid of Giza
After Percy Lambert was killed racing at Brooklands in 1913 he was buried at Brompton Cemetery in a coffin designed to match his racing car
Wealthy oil baron Nubar Gulbenkian had a luxurious taxi conversion. He told friends “Apparently it can turn on a sixpence, whatever that is”
St. Paul’s Cathedral at 365ft high and over 40 years to construct. It took so long to complete its builders had the reputation of being lazy
The only qualification needed to join Edmund Kean’s Wolf Club at the Coal Hole, Strand was your wife had forbidden you to sing in the bath
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.
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