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.

On 27 April 1831 Apsley House, the London home of the Duke of Wellington, was targeted by ‘an unruly and indecent mob’ incensed by his opposition to the Reform Bill. They ‘broke the windows … and he caused to be put up those blinds which remain to this day as a record of the people’s ingratitude’.

On 27 April 1970 actor Tony Curtis was caught in possession of cannabis at Heathrow Airport and fined £50. He had flown in to star alongside Roger Moore in the long-running series The Persuaders

One for the Road and On the Waggon derive from condemned prisoners going to Tyburn being given a drink at the Angel PH St Giles High Street

Richard Rogers’ Lloyds building was completed in 1986 and Grade I listed in 2011 the youngest building ever to gain that level of protection

St George’s Hospital has a cowhide belonging to Blossom who gave cowpox to Sarah Nelmes in 1796 Jenner developed smallpox vaccine from virus

The clock at Horse Guards has a black square on the dial denoting the time King Charles I was executed outside Banqueting House opposite

The location shots in the 1950s film Passport to Pimlico were shot not in affluent Pimlico but poorer Lambeth and Vauxhall in south London

On 27 April 1828 the Zoological Gardens at Regent’s Park opened, it was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study, the zoo didn’t open to the public until 1847

In 1895, an American visitor demonstrated a new type of basketball where the girls played with wastepaper baskets at both ends of the hall

The first man ever to fly from London to Manchester did so by following the whitewashed sleepers of the London and North Western Railway

Established in 1805 Truefitt and Hill of St. James’s Street remains the world’s oldest barbershop having served nine consecutive Monarchs

Only members of the Royal Family are allowed to drive through the central arch at Horse Guards – Kate Middleton did so after her marriage

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 20 April 1901, the final tie for the FA Cup was between Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield United at Crystal Palace, Sydenham; 114,000 people attended and it ended with a 2-2 draw. It would be replayed at Bolton a week later.

On 20 April 1968 Conservative MP Enoch Powell made his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech warning about immigration, he was fired from the Cabinet

Magpie and Stump pub until 1868 would charge extra for drinks taken upstairs where punters could enjoy viewing the public hangings at Newgate

At 141ft, Adelaide House was the tallest office block in London when it was completed in 1925 and was the first office building in England to have electric and telephone connections on every floor

Now located in Beckenham, King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry was originaly named bedlam, meaning uproar and confusion

The future Mary II is said to have wept for a day and a half when she was told that she would have to marry William of Orange in 1677

Off Greville Street, Clerkenwell is the cobbled Bleeding Heart Yard mentioned by Charles Dickens in Little Dorrit

The world’s oldest public zoo opened in London in 1828 it was initially known as the ‘Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society of London’

Greyhound racing’s first superstar ‘Mick the Millar’ was so popular his stuffed body was put on display at the Natural History Museum

The Peter Lodge recording of “Mind the Gap” is still in use, but some lines use recordings by a Manchester voice artist Emma Clarke

Tesco was founded in 1924 when Jack Cohen and T. E. Stockwell sold tea in bulk opening a store in Tooting

The corgis also have hot scones every afternoon, served with butter and crumbled onto the kitchen floor by the Queen herself

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 13 April 1984 during an anti-Gadaffi rally at the Libyan People’s Bureau, No. 5 St James’s Square, shots were fired from a window at the Bureau, one of which killed PC Yvonne Fletcher, a few yards away from her fiancé who was also a policeman.

On 13 April 1999 a nail bomb exploded in Brixton, injuring at least 45 people, it was thought that the target was the largely black clientele of Brixton Market

In Oliver Twist Charles Dickens sited Fagin’s Lair in the notorious area that existed around the current Saffron Hill

In the 11th century, Brixton was known as ‘Brixistane’ meaning ‘the stone of Brihtsige’. Locals used the stones as a meeting place

Behind the stalls of Islington’s Sadlers Wells Theatre is the well containing medicinal water which Thomas Sadler found in 1684

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

George Orwell used Senate House in Bloomsbury as the inspiration for The Ministry of Truth in his book 1984

Birdcage Walk was the site of the 17th century Royal Aviary. Diarist John Evelyn spotted “many curious kinds of poultry” here

In 1922 in the rafters of Westminster Hall was found a tennis ball dating from before 1520 made of leather and stuffed with dog’s hair

In between Golders Green and Hampstead the tube slows down for the ghost station “Bull and Bush”, a station which was never built

In the early 80’s comic Jo Brand worked as a psychiatric nurse at the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, a fact of her life she will often talk about

Chains from Brunel’s Hungerford Bridge, demolished in 1864, were re-used as part of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol

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 6 April 1580, an earthquake struck London at about 6 pm, half a dozen chimney stacks and a pinnacle at Westminster Abbey came down. Thomas Grey, an apprentice cobbler was killed by falling masonry.

On 6 April 1966 The Beatles recorded the start of their album, ‘Revolver’, with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, at Abbey Road Studios

In Oliver Twist Charles Dickens sited Fagin’s Lair in the notorious area that existed around the current Saffron Hill

In the 11th century, Brixton was known as ‘Brixistane’ meaning ‘the stone of Brihtsige’. Locals used the stones as a meeting place

Behind the stalls of Islington’s Sadlers Wells Theatre is the well containing medicinal water which Thomas Sadler found in 1684

On 6 April 1895 Oscar Wilde was arrested for gross indecency and sentenced to 2 years hard labour. At the time homosexuality was a crime

George Orwell used Senate House in Bloomsbury as the inspiration for The Ministry of Truth in his book 1984

Birdcage Walk was the site of the 17th century Royal Aviary. Diarist John Evelyn spotted “many curious kinds of poultry” here

In 1922 in the rafters of Westminster Hall was found a tennis ball dating from before 1520 made of leather and stuffed with dog’s hair

In between Golders Green and Hampstead the tube slows down for the ghost station “Bull and Bush”, a station which was never built

In the early 80’s comic Jo Brand worked as a psychiatric nurse at the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, a fact of her life she will often talk about

Chains from Brunel’s Hungerford Bridge, demolished in 1864, were re-used as part of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol

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.