On 11 September 1980 the ‘Marlborough Diamond’, totalling 26-carats, was stolen by two Chicago gangsters from the Graff jewellers shop in Knightsbridge. They got away with a total of £1,429,000 worth of gems and were arrested in Chicago as they stepped off the plane. The diamond was never recovered.

On 11 September 1978 Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov died of suspected ricin poisoning, it was suspected that the poison was delivered via the point of an umbrella

The last person to be executed at the Tower of London was German soldier Josef Jakobs in 1941, shot by a military firing squad

Until 1994 there were no ‘roads’ in the City, there’s now one, Goswell Road becoming part of the Square Mile in 1994 after boundary changes

Wyndham’s theatre programme 1940. “In the interests of public health this theatre is disinfected with Jeyes Fluid”

In the Old Red Lion, Islington Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man and Lenin eavesdropped on conversations via the dumb waiter lift shaft

Peter Cook lived at 17 Church Row, Hampstead where he regularly entertained friends such as Peter Sellars and Willie Rushton

Due to its status as a fashion Mecca and length, Regent Street is also referred to as the ‘Mile of Style’ as distinct from Oxford Street

The London 2012 Olympics organizers wanted Keith Moon to play at Olympics ceremony. They realized later that he had been dead for 34 years

Don’t believe the signs telling you how many steps there are: at Belsize Park Station the sign says 219 steps, but there are actually 189

In 1812 Bryan Donkin and John Hall set up the world’s first canning factory in Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey

Margaret Thatcher went to the same Mayfair hairdresser, Evansky as Barbara Castle, while Thatcher sat in main area Castle had a private room

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.