On 20 March 1819 Burlington Arcade was opened, not for the convenience of the public, but to stop public access. Annoyed by the constant litter being dropped alongside his house, Lord Burlington was inconvenienced by discarded oyster shells (a cheap snack in the eighteenth century) and dead cats being infrequently thrown over his garden wall. Percy the Poltergeist, is said to have been in residence since 1953, but no dead cats.

On 20 March 1974 Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips escaped an apparent kidnap in Pall Mall in which shots were fired

On 20 March 1966 the £30,000 solid gold Jules Rimet Trophy (World Cup) was stolen while on exhibition at Central Hall in Westminster

In 1925 the Marlborough Street end of Liberty was rebuilt in Tudor style using wood from two ships HMS HIndustan and HMS Impregnable

The Embankment hides a smelly secret – Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system which prevents sewage flowing into the Thames

In 1642 Charles I tried to arrest 5 MPs who criticised him. Since then no monarch has been allowed inside the House of Commons

At his home in Kensington Square, John Stuart Mill left his friend Thomas Carlyle’s manuscript lying around and his maid burned it

When Peter the Great stayed in the Deptford home of John Evelyn in 1698 he trashed his garden and drank all his wine

Now given the postcode of E20 the 2012 Olympic Park will share its address with Walford the London area in the fictional BBC soap Eastenders

Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate bar is by far the biggest seller in its dispensing machines at tube stations, the worst seller isn’t disclosed

During a restoration project in the 1920s, tennis balls were found in the rafters of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament

Diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666

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.