On 6 July 1535 former Lord Chancellor Thomas More was executed at the Tower of London for high treason for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, following King Henry VIII’s divorce.

On 6 July 1887 Lottie Dod won the Wimbledon ladies singles title aged just 15 and remains the youngest ever to do so

It is illegal for anyone to possess a pack of cards ‘who lives within a mile of any arsenal or explosives store’

The theatre ticket booth in Leicester Square conceals, 3-stories below, a electricity sub-station capable of supplying the entire West End

King Charles II took so long to pass away after having a stroke he apologised to his courtiers for “being an unconscionable time a-dying”

In 1902 after an “indignation campaign” the Richmond, Ham and Petersham Open Spaces Act became the first law to protect a view

A rather dubious attraction of the 1908 Franco-British exhibition at White City was a butter sculpture of King Edward VII

The Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel for many years the largest public room in Europe was a skating rink before becoming ballroom

Rugby netball was dreamt up by soldiers in 1907 and has been played on Clapham Common ever since. Games take place also on Tuesday evenings, but only during the summer

Dogs travel free on London’s buses but only at the discretion of the driver and must sit upstairs, TfL don’t specify which is the doggy seat

In 1748 Yorkshireman Thomas Chippendale set up his famous furniture business at 60-62 St Martin’s Lane employing just 40 men

The oldest door in the country dating from the Anglo-Saxon period is at Westminster Abbey using dendrochronology dates it at 950 years old

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 29 June 1901, the Horniman Museum was opened to the public, it contained a collection collected by a member of the famous tea brand. It has displays of anthropology, natural history and musical instruments, and is known for its large collection of taxidermied animals.

On 29 June 1920 Croydon Airport replaced Hounslow Airport as London’s civil airport

It is illegal to die in the Palace of Westminster on the grounds that anyone who dies in a royal palace is technically entitled to a state funeral, unfortunately, this has been proved to be a myth

The world’s first underwater tunnel was the Thames Tunnel opened in 1834 between Wapping and Rotherhithe was until 1866 used by pedestrians

The Museum of London has in its collection 6,500 skeletons comprising for study every period in London’s 2,000-year history

Charles I, rather ungallantly it has to be said, after his own nuptials declared that “you can get used to anyone’s face in a week”

The figure of The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street on the facade of the Bank of England has a model of the bank on her lap

On 29 June 1905 the Automobile Association was founded in a meeting at London’s Trocadero restaurant. The RAC was founded 8 years earlier

Staying in London after winning the U.S. Open American golfer Walter Hagan celebrated driving a ball across the Thames from the Savoy’s roof

Before motorised vehicles, horses were involved in an average of 175 fatal accidents a year in London and eat over 1 million tons of fodder

The Press Association was formed from an idea hatched in the back of a Hansom Cab stuck in a London smog in 1868

On 29 June 1960 the BBC Television Centre opened in Shepherd’s Bush. The first studio production featured comedian Arthur Askey

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 22 June 1953, Reginald Christie was tried for the murder of his wife at 10 Rillington Place, he had previously admitted to 7 murders, corpses were found in the house, garden and shed.

On 22 June 1814, the first cricket match was played at the new Lord’s cricket ground in St. John’s Wood between Marylebone and Hertfordshire

On 22 June 1535 John Fisher was martyred at the Tower refusing to submit to the Act of Succession his head was displayed on London Bridge

Waterstone’s elegant premises in Piccadilly was the world’s first steel-framed shop built at the time for Simpsons the previous owner

50 Berkeley Square is reported to be the most haunted house in London, the attic room is haunted by a young woman who died there, and a whole range of deaths followed throughout the 19th Century

The Thames is the second oldest geographical name in the country only Kent pre-dates it. Julius Caesar called it Tamesis, no one knows why

Lilian Baylis, the manager of the Old Vic, cooked her meals backstage during the show and the aroma filled the theatre

The Great Eastern Hotel once boasted two Masonic temples, its own railway siding and weekly sea water deliveries for its natural brine baths

Old English skittles, once popular in pubs across the southeast, but now confined to a single alley at the Freemasons’ Arms in Downshire Hill, Hampstead

A taxi rate of a shilling (5p) a mile was established in an Act of 1662 by King Charles II it was not increased until 1950 nearly 300 later

St. Margaret Pattens Church in Rood Lane has a memorial to James Donaldson, a ‘City Garbler’, and a person who specialised in selecting spices

The Japanese term for a business suit is a sebiro, a simple transliteration of Savile Row a street famous for London’s finest tailors

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 15 June 2011 Harrods was sold to the Qataris for a reported £1.5 billion by Mohamed Al Fayed, and started selling superyachts this day. According to The Times, the Mars model retailed at £100 million.

On 15 June 1215 King John’s Magna Carta was signed at Runnymede to limit the power of the monarchy

The narrowest house in London lies next door to Tyburn Convent and was built to block a passage used by grave robbers. It is one metre wide

Holborn Viaduct was built in 1869 to overcome the steep slope on both sides of Farringdon Street and is the world’s first road flyover

At 9 Curzon Place where Cass Elliot of Mamas & Papas died in 1974, Who drummer Keith Moon died from drugs in the same flat – both aged 32

William IV was the last king ever to dismiss his government, although all subsequent monarchs have in principle been free to do so

Harry Potter’s magic luggage trolley sticks out of a wall between platforms 8/9 not 9/10 because J.K.Rowling was thinking of Euston

There are 32 pods on the London Eye, one for every borough, but they’re numbered 1 to 33 – no number 13 for superstitious reasons

In June 1939 92,000 watched the greyhound racing Derby at White City, only football and cinema drew larger audiences during the 1930s

Electric cabs on Victorian streets numbered a mere 19 at the time 10,361 horse drawn cabs plied for hire and continued in service until 1947

Prince Philip who first referred to the Royal Family as “The firm” also described Buckingham Palace as “not ours, it’s a tied cottage”

The last thatched cottage in inner London survived in the Paddington area until 1890s when it was demolished for St. David’s Welsh Church

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 8 June 1968, James Earl Ray was arrested at Heathrow, travelling under an assumed name and false passport, on charges of conspiracy and murder in connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He was later jailed for 99 years.

On 8 June 1925, Noel Coward’s comedy Hay Fever opened, making theatrical history as there were then three Coward plays running concurrently in the West End

At Westminster Abbey traces of skin from a 14th century thief who attempted to steal the church’s valuables are still nailed to a door

Westminster Abbey was built on what was a remote island called Thorney Island situated in the middle of some marshland to the west of London

Dirty Dicks PH comes from dandy Richard Bentley whose house was on the site, on their wedding eve his bride died after which he lived in squalor

Pains Fireworks, still making fireworks, founded in the 15th century in the East End, sold the light gunpowder used in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605

Little St Pauls Cathedral is a sculpture on the side of Vauxhall Bridge and only visible from the River Thames

Henry VIII’s Wine Cellar a 40,000 cu. ft. cavern weighing 800 ton was moved more than 40ft to preserve it during the rebuilding of Whitehall

Tottenham Hotspurs deliberately set Jimmy Greaves’s 1961 transfer fee from AC Milan at £99,999 to avoid putting him under the pressure of being the first £100,000 player

The longest gap between stations is 3.89 miles from Chesham to Chalfont and Latimer; the shortest Covent Garden to Leicester Square 0.25 miles

The Mercers Livery Company is the oldest of London’s Guilds with ordinances dating back to 1347 and are No. 1 in the list of precedence

Estimated distances Bow Bells could be heard from City in olden days (definition of true Cockney) – 6 miles to east, 5 north, 3 south, 4 west

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.