On 24 June 1699 the oldest house of worship for Ashkenazi Jews got the go ahead, when a committee lead by Rabbi David Nieto leased land at Plough Yard in Bevis Marks from Lady Ann and Sir Thomas Payntz. Curiously the Bevis Marks synagogue was constructed by Joseph Avis – a Quaker. The building was necessitated by the considerable influx of jews into east London making the synagogue in Cree Street unsuitable.

On 24 June 1830 Peter James Bossy became the last person to stand in a London pillory, tried for perjury sentenced to transportation for 7 years, but prior to that having to stand in the pillory for one hour

The original indictment of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin (real name John Palmer) is held in the National Archives in Kew, Richmond

The Monument commemorating the Great Fire of London in 1666 is the tallest isolated stone column in the world. It rises to 202ft on Fish Hill, 202ft away from where the fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane

A fragrance known as Madeleine was trialled at St. James Park, Euston, and Piccadilly stations in 2001, to make the Tube more pleasant, stopped within days after complaints from people saying they felt ill

On Sunday 24 June 1509 the Coronation of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon took place at Westminster Abbey

In Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) featured the director making a cameo on the Tube

On 24 June 1963 saw the first demonstration of home video recorder at BBC Studios in London, using quarter inch tape it could record up to 20 minutes of low quality black and white television programmes

The earliest known account of sport in London was written in 1174 by William Fitzstepen, due to translation errors the game described is not apparent

London was the first city in the world to have a licensed taxi trade on 24 June 1654 the City of London authorised the use of 200 licenses

One City firm in the 1950s gave new employees a set of instructions including: ‘You will wear a bowler hat to and from the office’

On 24 June 1717 Premier Grand Lodge of England founded the Grand Lodge of London & Westminster latterly called the Grand Lodge of England

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 17 June 1789 Her Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket, known for opera, was burnt to the ground during evening rehearsals. The fire had been deliberately started on the roof. The owner Giovanni Gallini offered a reward of £300 for the capture of the culprit who was never traced. The name of the theatre changes with the sex of the monarch. It first became the King’s Theatre in 1714 on the accession of George I.

On 17 June 1497 King Henry VIII leading a 25,000 strong army decisively beat an army of Cornishmen at Deptford Bridge who were rebelling against a tax levy ironically for war

Appeal Court Judge, Lord Bowen introduced the phrase, “The man on the Clapham omnibus”, to describe the average man in the street

To reduce noise wooden cobbles replaced stone in Victorian London, one of the last timbered roads is Chequer Street in Islington

The phase ‘pea-souper’ for a London fog refers to the fact that Londoners made pea soup from yellow split peas the colour of thick fog

The House of Commons’ press gallery bar is named Moncrieff’s in honour of respected political journalist, Chris Moncrieff – a teetotaller

Artist J. M. W. Turner lived at 118 and 119 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea using the roof as a vantage point for his painting

Priced at 7s in June 1935 the world’s first video was sold by Major Radiovision, Wigmore Street using discs to record 12 minutes of images

Opened in 1852 Islington’s Agricultural Hall (now Business Design Centre) was London’s first multi-purpose indoor arena, in 1878 a six-day walking race was held watched in 20,000

The London Underground is thought to be the third largest metro system in the world, in terms of miles, after the Beijing Subway and the Shanghai Metro

The original Royal Exchange was Britain’s first specialist commercial building reflecting London as the country’s premier trading port

On 17 June 1959 rhinestoned pianist Liberace won £8,000 damages from the Daily Mirror who claimed, quite reasonably, that he might be gay

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.