On 23 March 1743 the first London performance of Handel’s Messiah. An account by James Beattie wrote some 37 years later related that King George II while attending the premiere was so overcome by the Hallelujah Chorus, he stood, this forced the entire audience to follow suit. It has since become an annual tradition to stand. Many historians question the authenticity of this charming story.

On 23 March 1889 the free Woolwich ferry service was launched by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, it seems to have been out of commission ever since

Having slid down a chimney teenage street urchin Edward Jones spent weeks wandering around Buckingham Palace hoping to meet Queen Victoria

In 1825 Irish MP Sir Frederick Tench drew up plans for a new Royal palace its approach would need Covent Garden and the West End demolished

The 999 service was introduced to London in 1937, the buzzer which alerted the switchboard operators was so loud that a some of them fainted

The Houses of Parliament has over 1,100 rooms; 100 staircases; 3 miles of corridors and 19 bars and restaurants

The unpopular underground Criterion Theatre opened in 1874 forced air pumps were installed to prevent patrons from suffocating it then flooded

A poll conducted by BBC Radio London found of the world’s 180 countries (some minute) London’s restaurants catered for 123 national dishes

Little Bridge Grounds near Chelsea’s ground held the first amateur boxing matches in 1867 with cups donated by the Marquess of Queensbury

Opening 1863 the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon was the world’s first urban underground passenger carrying railway

Phyllis Pearsall the creator of the A-Z Map is said to have personally walked London’s 23,000 streets to compile her celebrated atlas

Dan Crawford founder of The Kings Head Theatre Islington refused to accept decimal currency they charged and gave change until 2009 in £.s.d

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 16 March 2009, the construction of the London Bridge Tower started, designed by Renzo Piano at 1,017ft it was destined to be the tallest inhabited building in Western Europe and needed foundations over 173 feet deep. It was soon dubbed ‘The Shard’ a name the developers would later adopt. Its 72 floors were topped out on 30 March 2012 and inaugurated on 6 July 2012. On 1 February 2013, the observation deck opened.

On 16 March 1872 the First ever FA Cup Final was played at The Oval between Wanderers (1) and Royal Engineers (0)

Insulting the King’s Bard still carries a fine of six cows and 8d (3p), although no-one is quite sure who, precisely, is the King’s Bard

The glazed-iron roof of Royal Albert Hall measures 20,000sq.ft. and was at the time of building the largest unsupported dome in the world

The proprietor of Whiteley’s original store in Queensway was murdered by an illegitimate son whom he wished to disown

Old Waterloo Bridge, a tempory structure, was transported by train to Germany in 1944 and rebuilt to span the Rhine. After the war it vanished without trace

Museums which record Londoners: Carlyle; Churchill; Dickens; Faraday; Johnson; Freud; Handel; Hogarth; Keats; Leighton; Morris; Nightingale

Harrod’s has more than 200 departments spread over 20 acres of floorspace, with an artesian well and a underground lock-up for shoplifters

The museum at Lord’s Long Room has a perfume jar containing the original Ashes, and a stuffed sparrow bowled out in 1936 by Jehangir Khan

On 16 March 1912, the last 4-horse team pulling an open bus ran from the foot of Balham Hill to Gracechurch Street

The Bank of England Chief Cashire’s signature have appeared on banknotes since 1870 but the Monarch’s portrait did not feature until 1960

Once granted The Freedom of the City of London you can herd sheep over London Bridge, carry a drawn sword and not get arrested when drunk

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 9 March 1950 Timothy Evans (25) was hanged at Pentonville Prison for the murder of his wife, Beryl at 10 Rillington Place. Mentally sub-normal he had, under duress, admitted to the killing, when in fact John Christie had murdered her along with many others. Evans was granted a posthumous pardon in 1966 and Christie was hanged for the crimes on 15 July 1953 by the same executioner who had previously hanged Evans.

On 9 March 1721 English Chancellor Exchequer John Aislabie confined in London Tower for ‘most notorious, dangerous and infamous corruption’ relating to the South Sea Bubble scandal

On 9 March 1966, Ronnie Kray walked into the Blind Beggar public house on Whitechapel Road and shot rival gangster George Cornell through the head

Queen Square, Bloomsbury takes its name from the statute at its centre but no-one knows the sculptor or which queen it is meant to represent

With no flowers Green Park is so named because it was once the burial ground for the leper’s hospital on the site of St. James’s Palace

Jewry Street was originally called Poor Jewry to distinguish the local Jewish community from the richer one round the corner at Old Jewry

Berkeley Square resident The Rt Hon John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon was Britain’s first owner of a car painted with metallic paint

The 4th Earl of Sandwich is credited with inventing the snack bearing his name to assist him staying at the gambling tables of White’s Club

Dating from 1879 Fulham Football Club is the oldest professional football club in London, starting out as Fulham St. Andrew’s Church Sunday School F.C.

In 1952 the Reliant Regal the forerunner to Del Boy’s Robin, was banned from the Motor Show as with three wheels it wasn’t regarded as a car

At the end of the 19th century there were 250-300,000 working horses in the capital each producing between 3 and 4 tons of dung a year

Several eminent Victorian engineers favoured a scheme to dam the Thames at Woolwich, thereby producing a vast inner city freshwater lake

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 Monday 2 March 1964 The Beatles joined Equity, the actors’ union, this was done only minutes before they began shooting their first film, the as-yet untitled A Hard Day’s Night. The Fab Four and the film crew met at Paddington Station, where their train left at 8.30am from platform five bound for Minehead in Somerset. No filming took place at the station, but George Harrison met Pattie Boyd, his future wife.

On 2 March 1952 Ronnie and Reggie Kray were drafted up for National Service, it was fighting authority here they became master-exponents of extreme violence and gangland thuggery

Lady Justice is usually depicted wearing a blindfold, but not the one on top of the Old Bailey, impartiality is shown by her ‘maidenly’ form

One brick on top of Canary Wharf is 10mm higher than the rest deliberately laid so brickie could say he’d laid the highest brick in Europe

Winston Churchill decreed that his coffin should leave London by Waterloo (not the natural station for Oxfordshire) just to annoy de Gaulle

The Prime Minister’s chair is the only one around the Cabinet table that has arms, it’s accompanied by 23 carved, solid Victorian mahogany chairs

Dickens modelled The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters pub in Our Mutual Friend on the Bunch of Grapes in Narrow Street

The first outside broadcast was that of the internment of The Unknown Soldier a Westminster Abbey in 1918

The 1948 London Olympics were the first to use starting blocks. Before that runners pushed off from a hole in the track, dug with a trowel

The old London Routemaster bus could lean further from the vertical without falling over than a human can

The oldest business ratepayer in London is Twinings Tea. Their shop at 216 the Strand has been in continuous use since 1706

Enfield Town has the unusual claim to fame of having hosted the world’s first cash machine in 1967, it was inaugurated by English comedy actor Reg Varney

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 23 February 1820 at 7.30 pm in Cato Street the Bow Street Runners apprehended the Cato Street Conspirators who had planned to murder all the British cabinet and the Prime Minister. The police had an informer and the plotters fell into a police trap, 13 were arrested, while one policeman was killed. Five conspirators were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, later the sentence was commuted to being hanged and decapitated.

On 23 February 1633 Diarist and Chief Secretary to the Admiralty Samuel Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street

Legendary Miss Marple actress Dame Margaret Rutherford lived at 4 Berkeley Place, Wimbledon from 1895 to 1920

Big Ben (ie the Clock Tower) tilted by over an inch when Westminster Tube station was excavated for extension of Jubilee Line in 1990s

Britain’s first fatal car crash took place on Grove Hill, Harrow.Today a plaque on the spot warns drivers to take heed!

10 Downing Street’s famous black door was, in the first decade of the 20th century, painted green, now there is more than enabling regular painting

The statue of Eros was meant to be ‘burying’ the ‘shaft’ of his arrow in Shaftesbury Avenue – but they put him up facing the wrong way

During the 1749 premiere of Handel’s Fireworks Music in Green Park, a pavilion erected for the event burned down

Fred Perry’s racket bearing the personalised monogram ‘F.J.P, from the 1934 Wimbledon Championships sold at Christie’s in June 1997 for £23,000

London’s oldest underground line was opened in 1863 between Farringdon and Paddington and is still in use today

From 1787 to 1852 Hackney was home to Loddiges’ Nursery, famous for tropical orchids, hothouses and an arboretum

The legally required turning circle of a London taxi is 25 feet. Cab owners include Prince Philip, Stephen Fry and Bez of the Happy Mondays

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.