The other day Twitter sent me a personalised tweet, it said that I’ve been tweeting London Trivia for 14 years. Anyone with a mind to can sign up to the social media site and scroll around to read my missives. For those of you (yes I’m including all you Baby Boomers) who can’t be bothered with all that Twitter malarkey, I put a widget on CabbieBlog’s sidebar which displayed that day’s trivia. Now Elon Musk, after paying a preposterous sum for Twitter is charging a king’s ransom for an API allowing your tweets to appear on a blog. I’m trying to work around this, but in the meantime – thanks Elon.
Stop Press. I have found a way round this by using the Google Calendar, see Daily London Trivia on the sidebar. Who needs Twitter?
On 16 July 1877 Spencer Gore won the first ever Wimbledon tennis tournament (men only) after a delay of three days due to rain
The Clink England’s first prison was notorious for its brutality, received its name from the clinking of prisoners’ manacles and chains
In 1110 Queen Matilda was crossing a ford at modern Bow, falling from her horse into the river the King Henry I ordered a bow-shaped bridge
A Black Death researcher claims the lack of rat corpses in London and the speed of contagion proves that it was spread by humans killing 40,000 in London
So many refugees arrived in the 1870/80s 150 synagogues were built and over 135,000 Jews were crammed into two square miles of the East End
In 1967 Finsbury Park was the setting for Jimi Hendrix’s first foray into his signature on stage guitar pyromania
18th century Fulham’s reputation for debauchery, gambling and prostitution echoes of which are used in gambling parlance, fulham means loaded dice
Steve Galloway was a 1980s semi-pro footballer who worked in the City – as part of his training NatWest let him run up their tower every day
At Heathrow the first aircraft to take off was a converted Lancaster bomber for Buenos Aires, passengers walked along duckboards over muddy airfield
In the early 20th century Great Portland Street earned the nickname Motor Row thanks to the 33 car showrooms that spanned its length
The Bank of England stores the country’s gold reserves in a subterranean crypt known as The Vault with a floor area over seven acres
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