On 3 April 1965, the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, a bleak modernist architectural edifice of 120 units and a tower, was opened by Ray Gunter, the Labour Party’s Minister of Labour. Only thirty-five units were taken prior to completion.

On 3 April 1913 Emmeline Pankhurst was sentenced to three years in prison for inciting supporters to place explosives at David Lloyd George’s home

Living in Cheyne Walk Keith Richard once had his Bentley Flying Spur fitted with Turkish flags to fool the police he had diplomatic immunity

The precarious nature of Albert Bridge, known as The Trembling Lady, forced authorities to order troops to break step when marching over it

It was once illegal to die in The Houses of Parliament for to do so the deceased would be entitled to a costly and undeserved State funeral

After the Dissolution much of Westminster Abbey’s revenues were transferred to St Paul’s hence the phrase ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’

The Underground roundel was taken and adapted from one used by the London General Omnibus Company, it was modified by Edward Johnston

At Twickenham on international match days fans consumed 120,000 pints, their dispensing system can pour a pint of beer in under 3 seconds

Saracens are the world’s first rugby union club to play competitively on an artificial surface, come the end of the season the edges are rolled back for athletics

The Jubilee Line is the only one to connect with all the other Underground Lines. The Jubilee Line was named to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 – but the line did not open until 1979

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the first opportunity the public got to glimpse a rugby ball, even though the manufacturer, leathermaker William Gilbert had supplied pigs’ bladders to Rugby School since 1820s

Georgian London used the farmland that became Belgravia to dump its excrement in such volume asparagus was said to have an undesirable taste

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 March 1953 four women’s bodies were found at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill. The tenant, John Christie told the police he didn’t know how many people he had murdered. Another tenant, Timothy Evans, had been hanged for the deaths of his wife and infant daughter. Christie never did admit to their murder and was hanged by Evans’ executioner Albert Pierrepoint; Evans was eventually posthumously pardoned.

On 27 March 2011 it was established that London’s population had risen by 12 per cent to 8.2 million, the most rapid increase in the census history

A 1839 law requires street organ-grinders to leave an area of The City of London if they annoy householders – failure to comply 40 shillings

The Savoy Hotel’s refurbishment went £120 million over budget – the most expensive in Europe – averaging £800,000 per room for its 268 rooms

On 27 March 1931 novelist Arnold Bennett died of typhoid at his Baker Street home after drinking water in a Paris hotel to prove it was safe

On 27 March 1945 Germany’s last V2 bomb to hit London’s East End fell on and demolished Hughes Mansions, Vallance Road, 130 people died

Immortalised in Keith Waterhouse’s play of the same name, the Spectator’s absentee journalist due to his epic boozing his byline said: Jeffrey Bernard is unwell

The World’s End pub in Camden Town is the site of a hostelry once run by Mother Red Cap known as the ‘old shrew of Kentish Town’

On 27 March 1966 Pickles, a dog owned by Thames lighterman Dave Corbett, found the Jules Rimet Trophy (World Cup) in bushes on Beulah Hill

On 27 March 2008 Heathrow’s T5 opened, at 4.50 the first passenger on the first outbound flight was Paul Walker, a 31-year-old ex-pat working in the flower business in Kenya

Whitechapel Bell Foundry established 1570 was Britain’s oldest manufacturer until its recent closure, making Big Ben, America’s Liberty Bell and St Petersburg bells

Stanley Green (1915-1993) famously walked London’s streets for years in his fruitless campaign preaching against . . . the eating of protein

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 March 1819 Burlington Arcade was opened, not for the convenience of the public, but to stop public access. Annoyed by the constant litter being dropped alongside his house, Lord Burlington was inconvenienced by discarded oyster shells (a cheap snack in the eighteenth century) and dead cats being infrequently thrown over his garden wall. Percy the Poltergeist, is said to have been in residence since 1953, but no dead cats.

On 20 March 1974 Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips escaped an apparent kidnap in Pall Mall in which shots were fired

On 20 March 1966 the £30,000 solid gold Jules Rimet Trophy (World Cup) was stolen while on exhibition at Central Hall in Westminster

In 1925 the Marlborough Street end of Liberty was rebuilt in Tudor style using wood from two ships HMS HIndustan and HMS Impregnable

The Embankment hides a smelly secret – Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system which prevents sewage flowing into the Thames

In 1642 Charles I tried to arrest 5 MPs who criticised him. Since then no monarch has been allowed inside the House of Commons

At his home in Kensington Square, John Stuart Mill left his friend Thomas Carlyle’s manuscript lying around and his maid burned it

When Peter the Great stayed in the Deptford home of John Evelyn in 1698 he trashed his garden and drank all his wine

Now given the postcode of E20 the 2012 Olympic Park will share its address with Walford the London area in the fictional BBC soap Eastenders

Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate bar is by far the biggest seller in its dispensing machines at tube stations, the worst seller isn’t disclosed

During a restoration project in the 1920s, tennis balls were found in the rafters of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament

Diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666

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 March 1967 hundreds of students at the London School of Economics took part in a sit-in over disciplinary action taken against two union officials, following their part in a demonstration on 31 January against the appointment of the LSE’s next director, Dr Walter Adams, in which a college porter died of a heart attack during the demonstrations. Students opposed the appointment as he had links with Ian Smith’s racist regime.

On 13 March 1961 five members of Portland Spy Ring went on trial at the Old Bailey charged with plotting to pass plans of HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, they were all found guilty

The London Hackney Carriage Act makes it illegal to hail a cab whilst the vehicle is moving, thankfully the police don’t enforce the law

London’s first Russian Orthodox Cathedral was consecrated in 2000 look down on its blue onion dome from Chiswick Flyover’s eastbound lane

The corpse of Henry V’s wife Catherine de Valois was dug up and put on display for 200 years, Samuel Pepys records kissing the lips for a bet

In 1940 Winston Churchill met at St. Ermin’s Hotel promising to ‘Set Europe Ablaze’ the genesis of the SOE which ultimately became the SAS

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

Kaspar the Cat was a large feline figure used at the Savoy Hotel if a table setting totalled 13 increasing it beyond that unlucky number

Ping-pong bar Bounce at 121 Holborn is on the site where John Jacques created and patented the game in 1901

The taximeter invented in 1891 giving the cab its alternative name wasn’t used in London until 1907 in a attempt to prevent rows about fares

In the Royal Mews the carriages are the responsibility of the Master of the Horse a position created by Edward III after the Siege of Calais

The world’s first ATM was installed outside Barclays Bank, Enfield in 1967 it was opened by actor/comedian Reg Varney who withdrew £10

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 March 1997 Picasso’s Tête de Femme worth £700,000 was stolen from the Lefevre Gallery in Mayfair, by a man brandishing a sawn-off shotgun. The raid was over in 35 seconds, the thief jumped into a taxi which took him to, of all places, Halford’s in Battersea at which point he made a phone call before travelling on to Wimbledon and evading capture. To the dismay of art lovers, the painting was later recovered.

On 6 March 1961 the image of the capital’s taxi cab as a black Austin FX3 changed as the capital’s first mini cab by Carline Cabs arrived

Among the final few people ever to be imprisoned in the Tower of London were the Kray twins. (Recaptured after deserting from the Army)

Percy Circus, WC1 was named after writer Sydney Smith’s brother Robert Percy Smith who was a director of the New River Company

Charles Dickens nearly became an actor but missed the audition at the Covent Garden theatre due because he had flu

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the USA, was married in All Hallows by the Tower in 1797, the oldest church in the City of London was founded in 675AD

In 1747 William Hogarth painted The Stage Coach at the former Angel Inn, 1 Islington High Street, rebuilt and occupied by Co-op Bank

The founder of Soho restaurant Quo Vadis chose the name because he didn’t know whether it would succeed – it means ‘where are you going?’

As the boat race is taking place Spitalfields City Farm raise funds for animal feed by racing 3 goats: ‘Oxford’ and ‘& Cambridge’

Next time you can’t find a bus, try Waterloo Bridge, there, one crosses the Thames every 16 seconds, but very slowly

Edward Garton had an incentive to change the name of his Gartons sauce everyone spelt it backwards and you get snot rag – so HP Sauce it was

On 6 March 1998, the Meteorological Office in Bracknell was rung by a pensioner from Shirley distressed at seeing her garden covered in frogs

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.