On 29 April 1826 a public meeting was held chaired by Sir Stamford Raffles. Its purpose was to ascertain the viability of importing animals and putting them on display to the public. Sir Stamford had his reservations as to the zoo’s location “The Regent’s Park is to be the headquarters . . . though we do not know how the inhabitants of the Park will like lions, leopards and lynxes so near their neighbourhood”.

On 29 April 1968 after 139 years of operation the Metropolitan Police’s first black woman, Fay Allen (21) started work in Croydon

The term ‘down-under’ comes from a tunnel on Millbank which deported prisoners were led in chains to barges on their first leg to Australia

Chiswick House built to house Lord Burlington’s art collection became a lunatic asylum before being listed for demolition in the 1950s

In 1974 Cass Elliot died of a heart attack in Harry Nilsson’s Mayfair flat the same block that The Who drummer Keith Moon died 4 years later

The Lamb and Flag pub at St Christopher’s Place in the 19th century was reputed to be the haunt of anarchists

Naked statutes outside Zimbabwe House caused an outcry when unveiled in 1908 the building opposite replaced its windows with frosted glass

Pasqua Rosee a Sicilian servant first introduced coffee to London first to his master’s guests then in a shed by St Michael Cornhill in 1652

Set up in 1869 the Hurlingham Club originally hosted pigeon shooting before becoming a major venue for tennis

The longest tube journey one can take without changing trains is Epping to West Ruislip a distance of 34.1 miles

In April 1755 after 9 years work and payment of 1,500 guineas Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London

Zizzi is French for willy at Zizzi’s on the Strand in April 2007 a man ran in took a knife jumped on a table dropped his trousers and cut off his penis

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 22 April 1760 history was made this day by Belgian Jean-Joseph Merlin. The instrument maker demonstrated his invention much loved by children ever since. At a masquerade at Carlisle House in Soho Square, while playing a violin he roller skated across the polished floor. Unfortunately he had not mastered the art of stopping – with or without – a violin and crashed into a large wall mirror severely injuring himself.

On 22 April 1884 an earthquake centred in Essex was felt by workmen at the top of Victoria Tower as it swayed 4 inches

On 22 April 1737 William Hicks Wallingford’s MP was attacked by highwayman Dick Turpin in a coach travelling to London through Epping Forest

Richard Rogers’ Lloyds building was completed in 1986 and Grade I listed in 2011, the youngest building ever to gain that level of protection

In Charterhouse Square are the remains of a monastery where monks prayed for the souls of those who died in the 1348 Black Death

Huguenots (French Protestants) fled to London in the 1680s because of religious persecution in France, with many settling in Spitalfields

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (he of Sherlock Holmes fame) once described Putney as the ‘cultural desert of South London’

The BBC’s Maida Vale Studios started life as Maida Vale Skating Palace and was the largest roller skating rink in the world

The highest temperature recorded at the London Marathon 21.7C degrees on 22 April 2007: coldest 13 years previously in 1994 at 7.6C degrees

Tufnell Park is named after landowner William Tufnell who’s manor (since demolished) stood on the site occupied by the Holloway Odeon

Before the BBC pips, Ruth Belville made a living by setting her chronometer at Greenwich, then touring London’s watchmakers selling the time

On Good Friday a bun is put on the ceiling of Bow’s Widow’s Son pub in memory of one baked by a widow for her drowned son

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 15 April 1984 one of England’s greatest entertainers collapsed and died in front of millions of television viewers. Tommy Cooper was midway through his act televised live from Her Majesty’s Theatre when he grabbed the curtain and collapsed on stage. The audience thinking it was part of his act laughed. He would often hand cabbies an envelope saying cheerily: “Have a drink on me”, inside, they would find a tea-bag.

On 15 April 1936 the swastika-draped coffin of German Ambassador Leopol von Hoesch was driven to Victoria Station while thousands lined the route in silence

St Martin Le Grand maintained right of sanctuary as late as 1697 and became a Mecca for counterfeit jewellers breaking the law with impunity

The 32 capsules on the London Eye are representative of the 32 London boroughs, and each one weighs as much as 1,052,631 old pound coins

Kenneth Williams lived at 8 Marlborough House, Osnaburgh Street until his death on the 15th April 1988 his final note was “Oh, what’s the bloody point”, Rob Brydon later bought the flat

Known formally as The Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament was cited by the river Thames so it could not be totally surrounded by a mob

On 15 April 1755 after 9 years work and payment of 1,500 guineas Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London

According to the Guinness Book of Records London has the oldest bicycle shop in the world (Pearsons of Sutton, established as a blacksmiths in 1860)

Only 14 men have run each and every one of the 34 London Marathons, one is former head teacher Mike Peace his best time is 2:37.12 in 1991

The lowest number not used by a London bus is 218 all lower numbers may be found but 218, 239 and 278 are the only missing numbers below 300

Peek Frean’s was a popular biscuit brand, known as Biscuit Town its huge factory in Bermondsey claimed to be the world’s biggest

On 15 April 1988 Eliza Sophie Caird (Eliza Doolittle – Missing) was born in Camden her grandmother is Sylvia Young of the Sylvia Young Theatre School

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 8 April 2013 Margaret Thatcher died at her suite in the Ritz Hotel. She may have helped invent soft-serve ice cream, after graduating from Oxford she worked as a research chemist at a Hammersmith food manufacturer J. Lyons and Company and was part of a team tasked with ‘whipping more air into ice cream’. They came up with a kind of ‘soft ice cream’ using fewer ingredients and saved money on production costs.

On 8 April 1989 the longest single movement in Western musical history was performed at the Proms, Odyssey was 96 minutes punctuated by a grandfather’s clock chimes

In 1880 it was suggested redrawing London’s borough boundaries making each one hexagonal to stop cabbies cheating on their fares

Putney Bridge is unique in that it is the only one in Britain with a church at either end (St Mary’s Putney and All Saints Fulham)

On 8 April 1943 author James Herbert was born in the East End. He later went to Columbia Road nursery and Our Lady of the Assumption School

The green cab shelters were erected by Victorian philanthropists with the stipulations that no alcohol to be consumed nor politics discussed

On 8 April 1967 Dagenham’s Sandie Shaw (Sandra Goodrich) became the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest with Puppet on a String

Between 1927 and 39 London boasted no fewer than 27 greyhound tracks. Today only three tracks survive, at Wimbledon, Romford and Crayford

Between 1743 and 1939 with fourteen Islington had the highest concentration of public and private swimming baths ever recorded in Britain

London cabbies are forbidden to transport passengers suffering with a ‘notifiable disease’, bubonic plague is but one disease specified

St. Paul’s Cathedral took so long to build in 17thC London that a lazy worker at the time would be called a St Paul’s workman

The Camberwell Beauty is the colloquial term for Nymphasil antiopa, a velvety, chocolate brown butterfly rarely seen because it migrates annually to Scandanavia from London

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 1 April 1860 people throughout London received the following invitation: “Tower of London: Admit Bearer and Friend to view annual ceremony of Washing the White Lions on Sunday, April 1, 1860. Admittance only at White Gate.” By noon a large crowd had gathered, they were disappointed to find that lions hadn’t been kept in the tower for centuries. After several animals escaping they had left the Tower in 1832.

On 1 April 1980 the BBC reported that Big Ben clock would be converted to a digital in order to modernize the tower’s look. BBC Japan offered the clock hands in a contest to the first four callers

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 the structure

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, an advanced dispensing system can pour a pint of beer in under three 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.