On 10 September 1963 the American credit culture hit the streets. American Express arrived, the first credit card was soon to be accepted at nearly 3,000 hotels, restaurants, shops in this country, the Bank of England gave permission for the scheme to go ahead – on condition users do not spend more than £75 on any one item purchased abroad, until then, Amex card holders had been able to use their cards in this country, but only if they could settle their accounts in dollars.

On 10 September 1897 cabbie George Smith crashed into a Bond Street shop and became the first person convicted of drunk-driving, fined £1

Francis Towneley executed for the Jacobite Rising his family stole the head returning to family home and kept it for years in a basket at Towneley Hall

St. Etheldreda’s Church built c.1250 is the oldest Catholic church in England the only surviving building in London dating from this period

According to a 2002 study air quality on the Underground was 73 times worse than at street level, with 20 minutes on the Northern Line having the same effect as smoking a cigarette

Portobello Road takes its name from the 1739 sea battle where the English captured the Portobello naval base in Panama from the Spanish

The “local palais” mentioned in The Kinks’ “Come Dancing” was The Athenaeum, Fortis Green Road replaced by a Sainsbury’s store in 1966

On 10 September 1973 designer Barbara Hulanicki and husband Simon Fitzsimon opened Art Deco department store-Big Biba-on Kensington High Street

Arsenal Station is London’s only station named after a football club originally opened as Gillespie Road in 1906 and renamed Arsenal in 1932

In Central London the deepest station below street level is on the Northern line. It is the DLR concourse at Bank, which is 41.4 metres below ground

Cheapside get its name from the Saxon word for market – ‘chepe’ as this was London’s main market in medieval times

In 1708 Upminster witnessed an experiment by Rev William Derham to calculate the speed of sound, his calculation was only 4.8 per second out

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 3 September 1878 at about 7.40 pm the largest loss of life on the Thames occurred when the paddle steamer Princess Alice with over 800 day-trippers, mostly women and children, returning from an excursion to Margate was rammed by the collier Bywell Castle many were thrown into the Thames one-hour after the twice-daily release of 75 million gallons of raw sewage from sewer outfalls at Barking and Crossness had occurred, over 650 died.

On 3 September 1939 the first World War II air raid sirens were heard over London just 7 minutes after Britain had declared war on Germany

In 19th-century London, fake ice cream was made from mashed turnip, there is no record of any convictions for its sale

When the statue of Eros, Piccadilly Circus, was put back up after World War II it was erected the wrong way, originally it faced Shaftesbury Avenue

There were claims the first baby born on the Underground was called Thelma Ursula Beatrice Eleanor (so that her initials would have read TUBE) but this story later proved false – her name was Marie Cordery

On 3 September each year members of the Cromwell Association hold a service in front of Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside Parliament

The only true home shared by all four Beatles was a flat at 57 Green Street near Hyde Park, where they lived in the autumn of 1963

In the Mitre Tavern stands the trunk of a cherry tree that once marked the boundary between the Ely Palace estate and London beyond

Pathé News didn’t have rights to 1923 Cup Final – so smuggled camera into Wembley disguised as a large wooden hammer (West Ham one of teams)

The longest distance between stations is on the Metropolitan line from Chesham to Chalfont & Latimer: a total of 3.89 miles

Rotherhithe once known for its shipbuilding industry, in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set sail on the Mayflower on the first leg to New England

In the 19th century those said to have enjoyed a Spitalfield’s Breakfast had actually eaten nothing as Spitalfields was an area of poverty

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 August 1990 one of the highest profile court cases of the year was concluded at Southwark Crown Court. Defendants Ernest Saunders, Gerald Ronson, Sir Jack Lyons and Anthony Parnes were convicted of involvement in a conspiracy to drive up the price of shares in Guinness during a 1986 takeover battle for drinks company Distillers. Lyons lost his knighthood and the other were sentenced to jail terms.

On 27 August 1967 Brian Epstein, manager of many groups including The Beatles was found dead at his Belgrave home, from a sleeping pill overdose

In the 18th Century pick-pockets where known as ‘divers’. A prolific London pickpocket was Mary Young, renamed ‘Jenny Diver’ by her gang

Whetstone is named after a whetstone a block of stone used to sharpen knives, a large stone outside the Griffin pub could be the original

On 27 August 1877 at 35 Hill Street, Mayfair co-founder of Rolls-Royce, the car manufacturer, Charles Rolls was born

According to local legend Theydon Bois in Epping Forest was the site of the last stand by Queen Boadicea against the Romans in AD 60

Picturesque Browning’s Pool forming the junction of Regent’s and Grand Union Canals was named Little Venice by Victorian poet Robert Browning

Europe’s first cable car ran up Highgate Hill it operated between 1884 and 1909, which was followed by a second cable line to draw trams up Brixton Hill to Streatham

The ‘New’ Wembley Stadium cost £798 million to build, it’s predecessor cost less than one-thousandth of that at £750,000

The London Passenger Transport Board was nationalised and became the London Transport Executive in 1948

Greenland Dock was renamed in the 18th century when it became the base for the Arctic whaling fleet, it was once twice the current size and one of the largest in the world

A stone obelisk in New Wanstead whose base is a remnant from a Roman road was once an important mile marker stone between Hyde Park and Epping

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 August 1989 the pleasure boat Marchioness sank after being run down by the dredger Bowbelle in the Thames, a total of 51 people died in the collision. The Bowbelle’s skipper, Douglas Henderson, was acquitted after a trial in 1991. After a campaign lasting 10 years a public inquiry criticised Henderson for failing to set up a proper lookout. In 2002 the first River Thames lifeboat rescue service was started in response to one of the report’s recommendations.

On 20 August 1929 the BBC made the first transmissions of John Logie Baird’s experimental 30-line television system

Chancery Lane takes its name from the 14th century Court of Chancery administered by the Lord Chancellor’s personal staff, the Chancery

Charing Cross was a hamlet known as Charing derived from Anglo-Saxon word cerring meaning ‘bend’ its position by a large bend in the Thames

Canning Town once had no roads, pavements, drains, fresh water, houses built below high tide level behind embankments were damp and flooded

The London Silver Vaults opened 1876 survived a direct hit by a German bomb in World War II that completely obliterated the building above

Jeremy Sandford’s much acclaimed 1966 BBC play Cathy Come Home directed by Ken Loach was partly filmed on Popham Street, Islington

Kensington Olympia opened in 1886 as the National Agricultural Hall on the site of a vineyard and market gardens in Kensington High Street

Chesham the start for the Tube Challenge visiting all stations on the network in the fastest time first completed in 1959 latest 16 hours 29 minutes 57 seconds

The original Tube escalators ended with a diagonal so it finished sooner on the right leading to the etiquette of standing on the right

Cannon Street was known as Candelwrichstrete meaning ‘candle maker street’ after the many candlestick makers that had set up residence

Olympia proved popular with King Edward VII who requisitioned a private suite as a secret rendezvous for liaisons with his many mistresses

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 August 1985 an operation performed by Britain’s leading transplant specialist, Egyptian-born Magdi Yacoub, made history. A three-year-old boy from Dublin has became the world’s youngest heart and lung transplant patient. Jamie Gavin had a four-hour operation at Harefield Hospital in west London. He had been waiting for a donor since May, when doctors told his parents he had a congenital heart disease which was progressively weakening his heart and lungs.

On 13 August 1899 Alfred Joseph Hitchcok was born in Leytonstone, his father was a grocer. Hitchcock’s 10th film Blackmail is considered to be the first British talkie

Shoddy axeman Jack Ketch who bungled the execution of the Duke of Monmouth lives on today as the hangman in the Punch and Judy puppet shows

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is the most densely populated area in the UK-13,200 people per sq. kilometre (London average 5,000)

When Polly, resident parrot of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, died in 1926 her obituary appeared in numerous Fleet Street papers

The British Legion introduced the first artificial poppies in 1921 raising £106k. The Poppy Factory has been at Richmond for almost 90 years

Billy Elliot rehearses dance moves at a youth centre not in the north-east but at Hanwell Community Centre, Hanwell

Kew Gardens is unique on the Underground being the only station with its own pub The Railway which has a door that leads out onto platform 1

West Ham home ground once formed part of Anne Boleyn’s grand manor house known as Green Street House, which was demolished in 1890

Edgware Road is London’s oldest road 2,000 years ago it was a grassy track, the Romans incorporated it into their major road, Watling Street

The Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, built the world’s first programmable computer known as Colossus Mk 1 the size of a small room

The Fairlop Oak one of England’s most famous trees was blown down in 1820, it was used to carve the pulpit in St. Pancras Church, Euston

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.