On 11 January 1993 at the High Court British Airways was forced into a humiliating climb down when their counsel apologised ‘unreservedly’ for an alleged dirty tricks campaign against Virgin Atlantic. Richard Branson’s top lawyer George Carman QC on winning the case claimed ‘distinctly hostile’ rumours against the airline forcing BA to pay nearly £4m in damages and legal costs. BA though still made a profit that year of £301 million while Virgin posted losses of £9.3m.

On 11 January 1858 Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridges Department Store, was born in Ripon, Wisconsin, USA

On 11 January 1950 Timothy Evans was wrongly found guilty & sentenced to death for murder of his daughter, Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place

The Brunei Gallery at SOAS on a wall is a plaque apologising for its being there-the only building in London to apologise for its existence

On 11 January 1890 Harold Bride, wireless operator on the Titanic, was born in Nunhead he washed off the ship as the boat deck flooded and was later rescued by the Carpathia

It was on High Holborn that Israel’s secret service, Mossad, killed one of the 1972 Black September Massacre terrorists by running him over

The movie Four Weddings and a Funeral was filmed at the Augustinian priory church of St. Bartholomew the Great

On Blackheath is an 18th century Pagoda designed by William Chambers used as a hideaway for Queen Caroline, wife of George IV

The 1908 London Olympics, the first of three held in London, were sponsored by Oxo, Odol mouthwash and Indian Foot Powder

Angel has the Underground’s longest escalator at 60m with a vertical rise of 27.5m. The shortest is Stratford with a vertical rise of 4.1m

Cock Lane was the only place licensed prostitutes could legally ply their trade in medieval London, although many roads took their name from the illegal sex industry

On 11 January 1569 Britain got its first state lottery when punters bought their tickets at the door at St. Paul’s Cathedral

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 January 1946 the day after William Joyce became the last Briton put to death for treason, 27-year-old Theodore Schurch a British soldier of Anglo-Swiss parentage was hanged for treachery by Albert Pierrepoint at Pentonville Prison, the last person to be hanged for a crime other than murder. Tried by court-martial at the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea during September 1945. He was found guilty of nine charges of treachery.

On 4 January 1962 Galton & Simpson sitcom Steptoe & Son was first broadcast from the BBC’s Shepherds Bush

In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St. Dunstan and All Saints Church, Stepney High Street

On the site of Bridewell Court, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars once stood Bridewell Palace the residence of Henry VIII from 1515-1523

In 1938 a pedestrian was killed by a stone phallus falling from a statue on Zimbabwe House in the Strand other appendages removed for health and safety

During World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle set up Le Bureau Centrale de Renseignements et d’Action at 10 Duke Street, Marylebone

England’s first public playhouse was The Theatre built in Curtain Road in 1576 by actor James Burbage. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England

Comedian and actor Will Hay English comedian, who first became well-known for his theatrical sketch as a joke-school master lived at 45 The Chase, Norbury from 1927 to 1934

Spurs’ first competitive match was versus St. Albans in the London Association Cup in 1885, Spurs won decisively 5-2

The George Inn, Borough High St. dates back to 1676, is the last galleried coaching inn in London and is mentioned in Dickens’ Little Dorrit

Abbey Road Free Church members formed the Abbey Road Building Society in 1874 in 1944 it merged with the National to form the Abbey National

In 1969 Laurence Olivier started a petition demanding that the dining car of the London to Brighton train reintroduce kippers – it worked

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 28 December 1802 on this Tuesday morning, a young man discovered the corpse of the Dulwich Hermit, Samuel Matthews, outside the entrance to his cave in Dulwich Woods. His murderer was never discovered.

On 28 December 1594 the first performance of Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors took place in the hall of Gray’s Inn

Thief-Taker General Jonathan Wild sent more than 120 men to the gallows but was hanged at Tyburn for running gangs of thieves

When Camden’s Egyptian style cigarette factory opened in 1927 the road was filled with sand and opera singers performed Aida

In 1907 William Whiteley was shot dead in his Bayswater store by a young man claiming to be his illegitimate son

When Napoleon was thinking of invading England his failed attempt was mocked by an unusual ale house sign: ‘My Arse in a Bandbox’

The Grapes, Limehouse was the inspiration for Charles Dickens’ ‘Six Jolly Fellowship Porters’ in Our Mutual Friend

Pimms was invented in 1823 at 3 Poultry at the Pimm’s Oyster Rooms as an aid to digestion serving it in a small tankard known as a No. 1 Cup

Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, saved the Oval cricket ground from closure only six years after it opened, desperate for funds they had considered adding poultry shows to the venue’s activities

Before CrossRail was named the Elizabeth line, Belsize Park was the only part of the London Underground to use a Z in its name

Wall’s Sausages used to be located at 113 Jermyn Street, where the meat for their products was ground by a donkey operating a treadmill

‘Hobson’s Choice’ comes from the livery stable owner Thomas Hobson who would drive from Cambridge to the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate Street

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 21 December 1846 Robert Liston, the ‘Fastest Knife in the West End’, who could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes, carried out the first operation in the United Kingdom using ether, amputating the leg above the knee of Fred Churchill. His comment was, ‘This Yankee dodge sure beats mesmerism’.

On 21 December 1842 Pentonville Prison was opened, called the ‘Model Prison’ and with the aim to contain men in jail, although many would be transported to Australia

In 1841 the Metropolitan Police reported there were 9,409 prostitutes and 3,325 brothels known to the police across the 17 police districts

St Pancras station’s bricks are that famous red colour because they’re made from Nottinghamshire clay supplied by the Nottingham Patent Brick Co. Ltd.

St. James’s Palace and its park were formerly the site of a leper hospital for women dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance

Trafalgar Square was to have been called ‘King William the Fourth’s Square’ architect and landowner George Ledwell Taylor suggested its name

Charles I’s statute in Trafalgar Square stands on the site of the original Charing Cross marking where all distances from London start

Tradition has it that Pimlico is named after Ben Pimlico, a 17th Century Hoxton brewer who supplied London with a popular Nut Brown ale

Running between Old Street and City Road Bath Street recalls the location of London’s first purpose built outdoor facility the Peerless Pool

London has fewer bridges spanning its principal river than Paris but has 23 underwater tunnels more than any other city in the world

Arsenal were founded as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, but were renamed Royal Arsenal shortly afterwards

Bank is the only one-syllable station name and Knightsbridge is the only London street name with six consecutive consonants

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 14 December 1920, the first scheduled flight disaster occurred when an aeroplane carrying 6 passengers and 2 crew members took off from Cricklewood Airport for Paris and crashed into a house in Golders Green, of the 8 on board, only 2 survived.

On 14 December 1934 Western Avenue was formally opened, it was designed to take pressure off the old Uxbridge Road and to open up the industrial estates to the west of London

Bricks from the world’s first modern prison, Millbank Penitentiary, demolished in 1892 were used to build Millbank Estate, Westminster

London’s City Hall at Tower Bridge is nicknamed ‘The Testacle’ and the Swiss Re: Building in the City is known as ‘The Erotic Gherkin’

In 1829, with London running out of space to bury its dead, architect Thomas Wilson proposed building a 94-storey pyramid on Primrose Hill, interning 5 million corpses

Playwright Richard Sheridan first described The Bank of England as “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” in a 1797 Commons speech

Charles Dickens based the haunted doorknocker seen by Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol on one he had seen in Craven Street

In December 1662 ice skating was first seen in St. James’s Park when exiled cavaliers from Holland donned their skates on the frozen lake

Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Golf Club is the closest 18-hole golf course to the City of London at 5 miles distant

Savoy Place leading to The Savoy Hotel is the only 2-way street in England that you must by law drive on the right hand side of the road

There is a gasholder in Southall with the letters ‘LH’ and a large arrow painted on it to guide pilots towards Heathrow airport

For £750,000 you can buy the remains of the Grade II Baltic Exchange damaged by the IRA and now stored in a Kent barn, the Gherkin replaced it

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.