On 23 June 1972 the Government floated the pound to shore up its value, assuring the public the pound would return to operating within fixed trading bands in time for Britain to join its European partners in 1973. Britain did join the Common Market, but the economy went from bad to worse. Mr Barber then imposed a 90 day price freeze from 6 November. Prime Minister Edward Heath was finally forced to call a snap election.

On 23 June 1998 the Heathrow Express opened with a railway service from Paddington station to Heathrow Airport

The 1839 Metropolitan Police Act, s.60, ss.3 makes it an offence to dust off your carpet outside in London after 8am punishable by £200 fine

Artillery Lane Spitalfields is named after the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company here before moving to Moorgate

Jimi Hendrix’s last performance was at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, on the day before he died – a jam with Eric Burdon

On 23 June 1951 Russian spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow but only after a leisurely lunch at the RAC Club

Now demolished, Nicholl House on the Woodberry Down Estate, Hackney was the backdrop for the Warsaw Ghetto in the film Schindler’s List

When Peter the Great stayed in the Deptford home of John Evelyn in 1698 he trashed his garden and drank his wine

Ping-pong bar Bounce at 121 Holborn is on the site where John Jacques created and patented the game in 1901

Roding Valley is the least used station on the London Underground network – it has fewer passengers in a year than Victoria has in a day

18th century Author Dr Johnson tried making pots at the Chelsea China Works but they kept collapsing and he gave up

Prince Edward had collected so many mistresses that a special pew was reserved for them at his coronation: it was known as the ‘Loose Box’

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 16 June 1824, shrugging off the irony in the name of their chosen meeting place, animal welfare campaigners, MPs Richard Martin and William Wilberforce, met with their supporters at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House to establish a ground-breaking new organisation. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) would become the world’s oldest animal welfare charity. In 1840 Queen Victoria gave it a Royal ‘R’.

On 16 June 1667 gold was buried in Cambridge by Samuel Pepy’s wife which had been smuggled out of London fearing the Dutch Navy were on the point of sailing up the Thames to seize London

Mount Pleasant PO is on the site of Coldbath Fields Prison which forbade inmates from speaking and made them spend hours on the treadmill

The pillars in the basement of St. Pancras Station are spaced exactly 3 beer barrels apart designed as Bass beer arrives from Midlands

The playwright Ben Jonson was buried standing up in Westminster Abbey – at his own request, saying he was too poor to take up more space

Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham is a direct descendant of John Bellingham the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812

Leicester Square was where Maurice Micklewhite saw poster for The Caine Mutiny and chose Michael Caine as new name

Westfield Stratford, the largest shopping centre in Europe, cost the equivalent of the GDP of the 25 world’s poorest countries to build

Harold Thornton invented table football in 1922 attempting to recreate Spurs with a box of matches, he played it at Bar Kick, Shoreditch High Street

The tunnel between East Finchley and Morden (via Bank) is the longest on the Underground measuring 27.8km (17.25 miles)

The Company of Watermen and Lightermen are not a full Livery Company – excluded because they charged people fleeing the Great Fire in 1666

Rosewood Hotel’s Manor House Suite is the only hotel suite in the world with its own postcode: WC1V 7DZ for the rest of the hotel: WC1V 7EN

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.