On 3 June 1982 Shlomo Argov the Israeli ambassador was shot whilst leaving a displomatic function at the Dorchester Hotel. The gunman fired two shots – one narrowly missing Mr Argov’s police protection officer and the other hitting the envoy in the head. The assailant was shot by the bodyguard, two others escaped but were arrested in Brixton. Robert Maxwell was in the hotel at the time, but, alas escaped unscathed.

On 3 June 1931 saw the world’s first outside broadcast as the BBC transmitted live pictures of the Epsom Derby using a single van-mounted camera

William Wallace, commemorated in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, was the first to suffer the ignominious fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered

The oldest church in the City All Hallows by the Tower was founded in 675 the undercroft has Roman pavement dating from the 2nd century

Tube has a unique species of mosquito identified by Queen Mary and Westfield College it feeds off rats and humans is unable to breed with other species

The night before the 1911 census suffragette Emily Davison hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons so she could claim that was her address

On 3 June 1970 Kink’s Ray Davies made round trip New York-London to change word in Lola (Coca-Cola to Cherry Cola) because of BBC commercial reference ban

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand was known as the home of chess, its serving practise-wheeling food out under silver domes-originates avoiding disturbing a game of chess

The Surbiton Club hired a ‘marker’ for its billiard room with an allowance of 18 gallons on beer a month, the first recruit, unsurprisingly was sacked for drunkenness

In cockney rhyming slang the Underground is known as the Oxo (Cube/ Tube), and there are only two tube station names that contain all five vowels: Mansion House, and South Ealing

By 1883 Fleet Street’s newspapers produced 15 morning dailies, 9 evening papers and 383 weekly publications, of which 50 were local rags

Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, was so taken with the Lambeth Walk that he hired an English girl to teach him the dance in Milan

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 May 1679 Habeas Corpus Act received its Royal Assent. Instigated by the First Earl of Shaftsbury, the ancient prerogative writ of habeas corpus, with later amendments, is a procedural device to force the courts to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner’s detention in order to safeguard individual liberty and thus to prevent unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment. It was subsequently incorporated into the American Constitution.

On 27 May 1541 Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury one of the last Plantagenets was beheaded at the Tower of London for her son’s criticism of Henry VIII’s divorce

In 1517 ‘Evil May Day’ saw riots against traders from Flanders, Italy and France led by John Lincoln he and other ringleaders were later hanged

Christopher Wren had originally wanted a stone pineapple on the dome of St Paul’s he saw them as a symbol of peace and hospitality

The first baby to be born on the underground was born at Elephant and Castle in 1924, she was named Marie Cordery

Harold Wilson lived at 5 Lord North Street, during his last term serving as Prime Minister spurning the official residence in Downing Street

With over 45 million visitors since it opened in May 2000 Tate Modern has become the most visited modern art gallery in the world

Waterstone’s Piccadilly London’s largest bookshop claims to be Europe’s biggest, 6 floors, over 8 miles of shelves, with over 200,000 titles

On 27 May 1851 German Adolf Anderssen won the first International Chess Master Tournament which was held in London winning £335

As Princess Elizabeth, the Queen travelled on the Underground for the first time in May 1939, when she was 13 years old, with her governess Marion Crawford and Princess Margaret

One of the Crossrail tunnelling machines is named Phyllis, in honour of Phyllis Pearsall who invented London’s A to Z map

London’s Camden Square has twice returned Britain’s highest recorded temperatures May 1949 – 29.4C and in June 1957 – 35.6C

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 May 1867 Queen Victoria laid the first stone of the The Royal Albert Hall. Originally it was given he catchy nomenclature `The Hall of Arts and Sciences` which to Victorian ears tripped off the tongue nicely. Her Majesty was having none of it and to our eternal gratitude insisted it be named after her late husband. It was the first building to be built top down, the dome was assembled in Manchester taken apart and transported to London.

On 20 May 1913 the Royal Horticultural Society having been forced to relocate from Temple Gardens chose the Royal Hospital Chelsea attracting 200,000 in its first year

Journalists known as running patterers went to executions to record the executed’s last words, they then printed and sold exaggerated versions

10 Hyde Park Place is London’s smallest house: 3’6″ wide constructed in 1805, it has only ever had one tenant

Constitution Hill’s name is nothing to do with the constitution – it’s because it’s where Charles II took his daily constitutional

When Soviet spy Guy Burgess lived at 38 Chester Square, Lower Belgravia he cunningly decorated his flat in red, white and blue

Hitchcock’s first film The Lodger – 1926 had him making a cameo on the Tube now the Underground’s Film Office handles over 200 requests a month

Gordon’s Wine Bar reputed to be the oldest in London, in the same building that was home to Samuel Pepys in 1680 and is owned by the Gordons family since 1890

The Surbiton Club in 1891 requested members playing billiards partaking of snuff to ‘leave no nasal excreta’ on the baize

The total length of the London Underground network is 250 miles; Tube trains travelled 76.4 million kilometres last year

When the south portico of the British Museum was built the colour of the limestone didn’t match, builders used French limestone not English

There is a 19th century time capsule under Cleopatra’s Needle containing money, a rail guide and portraits of ‘pretty English ladies’

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 May 1986 Leo Abse, MP and solicitor made legal history exercising his Right of Audience in the High Court. He was the first solicitor able to break through the glass ceiling ending the centuries-old tradition of the barristers’ monopoly representing clients in the High Court. No MP ever claimed a more ancient lineage, unlike the Ashkenazi Jews his name was not shared by any other family of Jews in Europe and was Phoenician in origin.

On 13 May 1842 Arthur Sullivan was born in Lambeth, with his partner Gilbert they wrote 14 comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado are among the best known

The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol, the prison was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels

Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue

Florence Nightingale’s statue outside St Thomas’s Hospital is a glass-fibre copy as the original was stolen in 1970

Near The Houses of Parliament the Silver Cross public house is a licensed brothel as the privilege granted by Charles I hasn’t been revoked

Both Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling both once lived at 47 Villiers Street, Strand now it is Gordon’s Wine Bar

Harrods installed its first escalator in 1898 and dispensed brandy to gentlemen and Epsom Salts for ladies to help the shock of its movement

London’s oldest sporting-related pavilion is at Syon House, built in 1803 by the Duke of Northumberland so his wife could watch regattas in comfort

The River Westbourne was funnelled above a platform on Sloane Square in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. It remains in place today

The original Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair was founded by Lord Byron’s butler, James Brown recently refurbished and is now owned by Rocco Forte

The largest clock in London is not situated on St Stephens Tower (Big Ben) but on the Shell Mex House which is on 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 6 May 1902 the last hanging was enacted at Newgate Prison. Aware of the extortionate cost of stringing up criminals, the apparatus was moved to Pentonville for future use. The last to avail themselves of this fine piece of engineering was George Woolfe, for the murder of Charlotte Cheeseman. The scaffold didn’t go to waste, 121 men were hanged at Pentonville the final execution at took place on 6 July 1961.

On 6 May 1990 after changing names for numbers, then adding the prefix 01, eventually 071 and 081 were introduced on this day, before going on to add 020

In May 1760 Earl of Ferrers became the only peer to be hanged for murder, wearing his wedding suit and taken in his carriage from the Tower to Tyburn

A small section of the old London Wall survives in the trackside walls of Tower Hill station at platform level. One of the largest pieces of the wall also stands just outside this station

When the Bishop’s Geese-prostitutes-had ‘goose bumps’ it did not mean they were cold or scared but had unfortunately caught venereal disease

The Royal Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian line, was founded by Charles II in 1675

The folk tune London Bridge is Falling Down refers to Norwegian King Olaf who suggested destroying the wooden bridge while occupied by Danes

Buck’s Club, the London gentlemen’s club which once boasted Churchill as a member, is where the Buck’s Fizz was invented

London Marathon’s youngest male winner was 22-year-old Kenyan Sammy Wanjiru in 2009, he died two years later after falling from a balcony

The escalator at Angel station is not only the longest on the Tube network, but the longest anywhere in Western Europe

When Sir Christopher Wren his and craftsmen took 35 years to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral they were criticised for taking too long

In May 2013 London was deemed as the city with the most multi-millionaires more than in the whole of France (4,224 against 3,800)

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.