On 4 May 2008, Boris Johnson beat his rival Ken Livingstone and assumed control at City Hall. His candidacy was the object of national and international scrutiny. David Cameron had commented, ‘I don’t always agree with him, but I respect the fact that he’s absolutely his own man’.

On 4 May 1913 the annual exhibition of flowers by the Royal Horticultural Society was held for the first time in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea

Forty Elephants were a gang of prolific female shoplifters from the 1920s who stashed stolen goods in specially adapted bloomers

London’s railings used to be brightly coloured. On the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria decreed that they all be painted black

In his will Dickens stipulated that no monuments be erected to his memory, that’s why London has no statues of one of its greatest writers

The American Declaration of Independence was printed in Caslon typeface designed in Chiswell Street by William Caslon, it’s now a Tesco

In 17th century London antics in St. James’s Park were put to verse: ‘Nightly now beneath their shade/Are buggeries, rapes and incests made’

Opening in 1910 with 2,286 seats the London Palladium had its own telephone system, so patrons could talk to each other

A white strip near BBC White City marks the finish of the world’s first modern marathon in 1908 originally 25 miles extended to 26 miles 385 yards

Traffic congestion in 18th century led to a law being passed to make all traffic on London Bridge keep to the left in order to reduce collisions, it was incorporated into the Highway Act of 1835

On 4 May 1896 the Daily Mail, at 1⁄2d a copy, devised by Alfred and Harold Harmsworth, was first published, the planned print run of 100,000 for the first day became 397,215!

Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre dubbed ‘Piccadilly Circus of South London’, Europe’s first covered mall was voted London’s biggest eyesore

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.