On 6 January 1792 The Anacreontic Society whose membership was dedicated to wit, harmony, and the god of wine published their last notice in The Times. The club’s anthem, ‘To Anacreon in Heaven’, sung at all venues as they promoted their interest to music to the wider public, was adopted by American rebels for the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’. The later was made the United States National Anthem by congressional resolution on 3 March 1931.

On 6 January 1540 Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves at the Royal Palace of Placentia, Greenwich. He was later to call her his Flanders’ Mare

The Magpie and Stump opposite Newgate Prison (on site of modern Old Bailey) served ‘hanging breakfasts’ to those watching public executions

In 1726 at No. 4 Church (now Fournier) Street, Spitalfields carpenter Marmaduke Smith built his home and England’s first mahogany staircase

On 6 January 1928 a storm surge travelled up the Thames submerging the Tate Gallery’s ground floor and drowning 14 Londoners

At the beginning of World War II Broadcasting House, home of the BBC, was painted battleship grey to avoid German bombers, it was still hit

The Highbury scenes for the movie Fever Pitch were shot at Craven Cottage. It still had terraces, which by then Highbury didn’t

The viewing plinth at the top of the Monument was caged in 1842 due to a high number of suicides some were bakers

William Webb Ellis, who invented rugby football, was rector of St Clement Danes, the church claimed to be featured in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons

The busiest Underground station is by far Oxford Circus, it was used by around 98 million passengers in 2014

Carrier pigeons on an Evening Standard van in 1936 were used to quickly take photo negatives to the paper’s HQ

In the early 70s David Bowie lived at 89 Oakley Street, Chelsea where he painted EVERYTHING in the house black to simulate a coal mine

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 30 December 1981 Fribourg & Treyer snuff shop closed its doors for the last time. A British snuff manufacturer and retailer it was founded by Mr Fribourg in 1720, at the sign of the Rasp and Crown. They sold cigars and snuff and cigarettes from at least as early as 1852, from their premises at 34 Haymarket. Customers included David Garrick, King George IV and Beau Brummell. The listed building and the intact facade still exists.

On 30 December 1887 a petition addressed to Queen Victoria with the signatures of over 1 million women appealing for public houses to be shut on Sundays, was handed to the Home Secretary

The City of London police is the smallest territorial police force in the world, as it only covers the Square Mile, although it has nearly 1,000 officers and special constables

The façade of Liberty’s in Regent Street is constructed from the timbers of the navy’s last two wooden warships : HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan

St George’s Hospital has a cowhide belonging to Blossom who gave cowpox to Sarah Nelmes in 1796 Jenner developed smallpox vaccine from virus

Playwright George Bernard Shaw served as a St Pancras councillor from 1897 to 1903, during which he worked to establish the first free ladies toilet in the borough

Novelist William Thackeray wrote Vanity Fair, Pendennis and Henry Esmond whilst living at 16 Young Street, Kensington

Henry VIII acquired Hyde Park from the monks of Westminster Abbey in 1536; he and his court were often seen there on horseback hunting deer

Leyton Football Club, claims to be London’s oldest club, Cray Wanderers if not once in Kent founded 1860, could be the earliest

On the Piccadilly line the recording of ‘Mind the GP’ is notable for being the voice of Tim Bentinck, who plays David Archer in Radio 4’s The Archers

In the 18th century a ‘Winchester Goose’ was not an animal. It was the nickname for a prostitute that plied her trade on the south bank of the river

The ‘Dirty Dozen’ is a nickname for a section of 12 Soho streets once used by cab drivers to short cut between Regent Street and Charing Cross

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 December 1834 architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom registered the design of a ‘Patent Safety Cab’, incorporating larger wheels and a lower axle leading to fewer accidents. It’s the type most associated with Victorian horse drawn cabs, Hansom sold the patent for £10,000 but was never fully paid, only receiving £300 for his ‘time and trouble’, by the century’s end, there were more than 7,000 black cabs bearing his name in London.

On 23 December 1970 The Mousetrap had its 7,511th consecutive performance making a world record for the longest running play

Jack Ketch’s Kitchen was a room at Newgate Prison named after the bungling executioner, here parts of those hung drawn and quartered were kept

The world’s first underground public lavatory opened in 1855 under the pavement next to the Bank of England

London’s smogs came in a variety of colours: black, brown, grey, orange, dark chocolate or bottle green – hence ‘pea soupers’

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s Communist Manifesto was first published (in German) in London’s Liverpool Street by the German printer J.E. Burghard in 1848

Next door to the George Inn, Southwark once stood The Tabard which was the pub from which Chaucer’s pilgrims started their walk to Kent in The Canterbury Tales

Between 1879-80 the man who originated the custom of sending Christmas cards, Sir Henry Cole, lived at 3 Elm Row, Hampstead

In the 1908 London Olympic Games marathon Charles Hefferon, with one-and-a-half miles remaining, accepted a victory glass of champagne, the bubbly caused him to vomit, and Hefferon was overtaken

Busking has been licensed on the Tube since 2003, Sting and Paul McCartney are both rumoured to have busked on the Underground in disguise

Established in 1902, Ealing Studios in West London are the oldest continuously working film studios in the world

The word ‘Strand’ is an old English word for ‘shore’. It makes reference to when the Thames was more shallow and more wide, and would have flowed along the side of the Strand

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 December 1937 Noel Coward’s Me and My Girl starring Lupino Lane premiered at the Victoria Palace Theatre. It gained popularity when the BBC broadcast it live on radio on 13 January 1938, it was first live broadcast of a performance by the BBC, and listeners could sing along from the theatre featuring what was to become the wartime classic The Lambeth Walk. It ran for 1,646 performances despite being bombed out of two theatres.

On 16 December 1977 the Underground extension to Heathrow was opened by The Queen, making London the world’s first capital with a direct rail link to its airport

The 17th century Seven Dials monument was removed as the thieves and prostitutes used to hang around it. The current replica dates to 1989

There were eight deep-level shelters built under the London Underground in the Second World War. One of them in Stockwell is decorated as a war memorial

Livingstone’s heart was buried under a tree where he died, now the site of the Livingstone Memorial, his remains buried at Westminster Abbey

Only two MPs have run the London Marathon under 3 hours, best Matthew Parris at 2:32.57 in 1985 and Doug Henderson achieved 2:52.24 in 1989

Author A. A. Milne found the original Winnie-the-Pooh for his son Christopher Robin in the Toy Department of Harrod’s on Christmas Eve

Harrod’s opened in 1849 as a single room grocery shop, a fire gutted the building in 1883 and in 1898 installed the world’s first escalator

London has 108 golf courses, to play every hole would require walking just over 300 miles (assuming you kept out of the rough) and crossing a covered reservoir in Honor Oak

During the Second World War, part of the Piccadilly line (Holborn – Aldwych branch), was closed and British Museum treasures were stored in the empty spaces

Billingsgate Market (old) was originally opened in 1016 selling food and wine, with fish becoming the sole trade later

The dog listening to the gramophone in the HMV logo has a road named after him, near his burial site in Kingston on Thames: Nipper Alley

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 December 1914 Lt. Harry Colebourne of the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps purchased a black bear from a hunter, who had shot the mother, for $20 in Ontario. He named it Winnie short for Winnipeg. Incredibly he brought the bear to England when it became the regiment’s unofficial mascot, leaving the bear to the London Zoo. A. A. MIlne and his son Christopher Robin saw the creature and thus Winnie the Pooh was born.

On 9 December 1868 one of Britain’s most famous politicians became Prime Minister for the first time. William Ewart Gladstone would become Prime Minister three more times

Workhouse Rule 15: No person of either sex be allowed to smoke in bed or in any room of the house upon pain of being put in the dungeon 6 hours

London’s biggest private home is Witanhurst, on Highgate West Hill: 65 rooms, including 25 bedrooms, a gym and a library, and plans underground cinema, beauty parlour and car park

The Bethlehem Royal Hospital is world’s oldest institution specialising in mental health was founded in 1247 near Bishopsgate, in 1800 the hospital moved to Lambeth, it now houses the Imperial War Museum

Queen Victoria was offended when a 14-storey tower blocked her view of Houses of Parliament it led to a Bill capping all buildings to 80ft

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, a 115-metre-high (377 ft) sculpture and observation tower in the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, is Britain’s largest piece of public art

London’s first sandwich bar, Sandy’s, opened in Oxendon Street in 1933, the greater informality of eating soon spread throughout the capital as the culture of fast-food was established

On 9 December 2000 the fastest ever goal in the Premiership was scored after 9.9 seconds by Ledley King for Spurs v Bradford City

Harry Beck’s map was considered too big a departure from the norm, but the public liked it and it became official in 1933

Founded in London in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company is the world’s oldest chartered company and Founded in 1694, the Bank of England was the first privately owned national bank in any country

During he 1920s and 1930s Aberdeen based shepherd George Donald would bring his flock down to Hyde Park grazing his sheep to keep grass level

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.