On 11 July 1976 Brent Cross shopping centre opened in north London. It had eighty-six shops, parking for 5,000 cars, was fully enclosed and air-conditioned and had a late policy which was novel at this time.

On 11 July 1848 the London & South Western Railway opened Waterloo Bridge station. A spur once led to the adjoining dedicated station of the London Necropolis Co., for funeral trains

The Clink England’s first prison was notorious for its brutality, received its name from the clinking of prisoners’ manacles and chains

In 1110 Queen Matilda was crossing a ford at modern Bow, falling from her horse into the river the King Henry I ordered a bow-shaped bridge

A Black Death researcher claims the lack of rat corpses in London and the speed of contagion proves that it was spread by humans killing 40,000 in London

So many refugees arrived in the 1870/80s 150 synagogues were built and over 135,000 Jews were crammed into two square miles of the East End

In 1967 Finsbury Park was the setting for Jimi Hendrix’s first foray into his signature on stage guitar pyromania

18th century Fulham’s reputation for debauchery, gambling and prostitution echoes of which are used in gambling parlance, fulham means loaded dice

Steve Galloway was a 1980s semi-pro footballer who worked in the City – as part of his training NatWest let him run up their tower every day

At Heathrow the first aircraft to take off was a converted Lancaster bomber for Buenos Aires, passengers walked along duckboards over muddy airfield

In the early 20th century Great Portland Street earned the nickname Motor Row thanks to the 33 car showrooms that spanned its length

The Bank of England stores the country’s gold reserves in a subterranean crypt known as The Vault with a floor area over seven acres

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.

On 4 July 1829 George Shillibeer established London’s first regular omnibus service; his horse-drawn coaches ran daily from Paddington, via Regent’s Street Park to Bank in the City, carrying up to twenty passengers.

On 4 July 1833 this Tuesday afternoon at Portman Market saw the ‘Sale of a wife’, the first bidding was 4s, the next 4s 6d; a dustman carried her off amidst the hisses of the crowd for 5/-

The Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road was where Ronnie Kray killed George Cornell by shooting him through the eye

Waterstone’s on Piccadilly was the inspiration for Are You Being Served? Writer Jeremy Lloyd worked there when it was Simpsons dept store

In the graveyard of Morden College, Blackheath is buried John Thompson ‘Yeoman of the Mouth’ (food taster) to Charles II and James I

Bethnal Green North East MP Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree (aka Bow and Agree) was the UK’s first Asian Tory MP from 1895 to 1906

One of the first shopping streets to be lit by electricity was Electric Avenue, Brixton made famous by Eddie Grant’s 1981 Electric Avenue

In The Shakespeare’s Head, Covent Garden the 4th Earl of Sandwich requested bread and meat thus creating the first ever sandwich

West Ham FC was founded in 1895 by workers Thames Ironworks who hammered iron to build ships so named ‘The Hammers’

The world’s first school bus (horse drawn) was set up to run between Newington Academy for Girls and Gracechurch Street Meeting House in 1827

A young Charles Dickens worked as a legal clerk in Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn where experience led him to call the law ‘an ass’

Maurice Micklewhite changed his name to Michael Caine after seeing a poster in Leicester Square advertising The Caine Mutiny

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.