On 17 December 1849 the world’s first bowler hat was sold by James Lock & Co., hatters of St. James’s Street. Created for Edward Coke, younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester for his gamekeepers. It was designed by hat-makers Thomas & William Bowler. To ensure it fulfilled his brief of protecting the wearer from low hanging branches Coke is said to have twice stamped on the hat’s crown before parting with his 12/-.

On 17 December 1983 an IRA bomb exploded outside Harrod’s, killing six and injuring 90, the car containing the bomb was projected onto the 5th floor of an adjoining building

In 1952 a Nigerian visitor was fined £50 for committing an indecent act with a pigeon in Trafalgar Square and £10 for having it for tea

Caxton Hall has been the venue for celebrity weddings including Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland. Diana Dors liked it so much she used it twice!

Suicide victims were once buried at crossroads to bring absolution, last person was Abel Griffiths interred at Grosvenor Place/Lower Grosvenor Place 1823

In December 2005 the London Eye was lit pink in celebration of the first Civil Partnership performed on the wheel

The Proms came to the Royal Albert Hall in 1941 from the Queen’s Hall in Marylebone which was bombed in the Blitz

Before the statue of Nelson was placed on top of the 17-foot-tall column in Trafalgar Square in 1842, 14 stonemasons had dinner at the top

The place name Millwall originates from the windmills that previously lined the western embankment of the Isle of Dogs

There was great opposition to the building the London underground from Victorian Churchmen because they thought it would ‘disturb the devil’

Kenneth Williams was once employed as an apprentice draughtsman at Stanford’s Map Shop at 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden

Before he got the part of James Bond, Roger Moore moved into a new house where he inherited a telephone number ending ‘007’

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 10 December 1868 the world’s first traffic lights were installed outside the Houses of Parliament. Operated by a policeman they had scarlet-red arms and red and green gas lights for use during nighttime and foggy days, looking much like a railway signal. One night gas escaping into the pillar’s hollow column ignited, killing the policeman operating the device. Traffic lights were put on the back-burner until 1929.

On 10 December 1971 Frank Zappa was hurled from the stage at the Rainbow Theatre by a fan, falling 10ft he walked with a pronounced limp for life

During World War II Diana Milford, then Lady Mosley was locked up in Holloway HMP but in a cottage in the gardens with her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley

London is the greenest city of its size in the world, green space covers almost 47 per cent of Greater London

In December 1817 Captain Bligh from Lambeth was cast adrift from The Bounty by a band of mutineers – his grave is in Lambeth’s Garden Museum

The British Museum’s reading room is where Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital between bouts of getting drunk and asking Friedrich Engels for money

Famously irritable landlord of Coach and Horses, Soho Norman Balon called his memoirs You’re Barred You Bastards: Memoirs of a Soho Publican

The department store that inspired the TV comedy Are You Being Served? was Simpsons of Piccadilly – now the huge Waterstone’s

When Spurs moved to their new ground in 1899 it was almost named Gilpin Park but gradually became known as White Hart Lane

Among the many things Londoners have left on the Tube are a samurai sword, a stuffed puffer fish, a human skull and a coffin

A profitable occupation in London was that of a Lurker who would use their ability to copy another’s handwriting usually to gain favours

Founded in 1826 as London University, University College London was the first university institution in England to be entirely secular

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 December 1976 London witnessed proof that pigs really can fly when Algie, a inflatable pig, broke free from his moorings near Battersea Power Station. Algie was being photographed for a forthcoming Pink Floyd Animals album cover. Curiously being near the flight path the Civil Aviation Authority issued a warning that a flying pig had been set loose, the ensuring publicity didn’t do any harm either for Pink Floyd.

On 3 December 1976 an estimated 3 million people applied for the 11,000 available tickets for Abba’s Albert Hall concerts

During the Jack the Ripper investigation the police paid £100 for two tracker bloodhounds but they got lost and needed the police to find them

Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London, is the only European synagogue which has held regular services continuously for over 300 years

In 1829 with London running out of space to bury its dead architect Thomas Wilson proposed a 94 storey pyramid on Primrose Hill to house 5 million corpses

The last execution to take place at the Tower of London was that of German spy Josef Jacobs, shot by firing squad in 1942

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

Soho is named after a medeival hunting cry (‘So-Ho’). No unlike Tally-Ho today. Until the late seventeeth century the area was open fields

Charlton means ‘homestead belonging to the churls’. Churls were the lowest rank of freeman during medieval times

In 1878 over 640 died when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice collided with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames

John Spilsbury invented the world’s first jigsaw puzzle at his print shop in Russell Court (near Street), Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 1766

Bow Street police light changed from blue to white as colour upset Queen Victoria when visiting Royal Opera House, Albert had died in Blue Room, Windsor

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 26 November 1983 Britain’s most successful robbery took place at Heathrow. £26 million sterling in gold, diamonds and cash was stolen from the Brink’s Matt security warehouse. The investigation lasted nearly 10 years and a large percentage of the gold bars were never recovered and few convicted. Several murders have been linked to the case, plus links established to the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary over 30 years later in April 2015.

On 26 November 1964 The Stones described in court as not a long-haired idiots but highly intelligent university men Mick was still fined £10

In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney High Street

Underneath the MI6 building is the overflow pipe for the River Effra, it’s just big enough to launch a mini-submarine from the orifice

Nell Gywnn, orange seller and mistress to Charles II was born in the Coal Yard, now Stukeley Street off Drury Lane in 1650

After his victory over England Hitler had a plan to dismantle Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square and display it in Berlin

Only one house where Charles Dickens lived still stands 48 Doughty Street from 1837 to 1839 here he wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers

The upper span of Tower Bridge was originally a walkway but it was closed in 1910 as it had become a haunt of prostitutes

One of the Scotland fans who invaded the pitch at Wembley in 1977 was Rod Stewart. In the commotion someone nicked his Cartier watch

In 1910 the London and North Western Railway offered its business passengers the on-board services of Miss Tarrant. (Typist)

In 2013 one ton of dust was removed from the attics at Kensington Palace, the first time since 1719 they had been cleaned

In the 1950s three members of the Attkins family were Highgate’s fishmonger, butcher and dentist – known as Fishkins, Porkins and Toothkins

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 19 November 1994 defying the odds of 1-in-14-million seven lucky lottery winners won Britain’s first national lottery aired live from a London studio. 35 million tickets were purchased and the winning numbers as drawn were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22. The bonus ball was 10. A lottery took place in 1566 for a jackpot of £5,000 according to a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, giving instructions for collecting money, commanding that persons of ‘good trust’ be entrusted with the prizes.

At the Royal Albert Hall on 19 November 1987 a rare 1931 Bugatti Royal was sold for £5.5 million at the time a semi-detached house cost £50,000

For some crimes the guilty were locked in the pillory then had their ears nailed to the frame, upon release were forced to leave them behind

King Street, St James’s is named after Charles II, King Street, Covent Garden is named after Charles I and Kingsway after Edward VII

The American talk show host Jerry Springer was born at Highgate during the Second World War: his mother had taken shelter in the station from an air raid

Trafalgar Square was to have been called ‘King William the Fourth’s Square’; however, George Ledwell Taylor suggested Trafalgar Square

It was at 9A Denmark Street (Tin Pan Alley), then La Gioconda, where David Jones (Bowie) and his first backing band – Lower Third – met

The Sanderson Hotel, Berners Street was a showroom for Sandersons wallpaper, the listed sign meant the hotel could have no other name

The oldest (and possibly most bizarre) medal winner was John Copley who won Silver in the London 1948 Olympics for an etching he was 73 at the time, drawing was in the Olympics until 1948

Charles Pearson, MP and Solicitor to the City of London, is credited with successfully campaigning for the introduction of the Underground. He died in 1862 shortly before the first train ran

During the war, some stations (now mostly disused) were converted into government offices: a station called Down Street was used for meetings of the Railway Executive Committee

Brydges Place named after Catherine Brydges daughter of 3rd Baron Chandos at 15 inches at its narrowest point is London’s tightest 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.