On 10 June 2000 the Millennium Bridge opened, hundreds wanted to be the first to use the new pedestrian only bridge and got a fright as it began to wobble alarmingly. It subsequently was closed for two years enabling the enginers to solve the problem by installing ‘dampers’. In spite of the successful fix of the problem, the affectionate ‘wobbly bridge’ epithet remains in common usage among Londoners.

On 10 June 1845 New Oxvord Street was officially opened, with the demolition of the infamous St. Giles Rookery regarded as the poorest area of London

In June 1982 Italian banker Roberto Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge, his clothes weighed down with stones

According to a 2013 report London is the world’s 3rd greenest city behind Singapore and Sydney: 122 heaths; 600 parks; 1,500 laying fields; and 125 recreation grounds

There’s a mosquito named the London Underground mosquito found in tunnels notable for stinging Londoners sleeping there during the Blitz

In June 1815 Major Henry Percy interrupted a ball at 16 St James Square to announce that 3days earlier we had defeated the French at Waterloo

Much of James Cameron’s Alien was filmed in a disuded power station in Acton, and not in outer space as some might have thought

For those visiting Hamley’s toy store today, it was founded by Cornishman William Hamley in 1760, first named Noah’s Ark and sited in Holborn

Tennis legend Fred Perry is commemorated by two plaques in Ealing, his ashes are buried near his statute at Wimbledon

The total number of passengers carried during 2013/14 was 1.265 billion – making it the world’s 11th busiest metro

Bermondsey’s Tanner Street and Morocco Street and Old Leathermarket are reminders of when the leather industry was based there

In June 1871 two giants got married: Anna Swan (7′ 5.5″) married Martin Van Buren Bates (7′ 2.5″) at St Martins in the Field Church

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 June 1982 Shlomo Argov the Israeli ambassador was shot whilst leaving a displomatic function at the Dorchester Hotel. The gunman fired two shots – one narrowly missing Mr Argov’s police protection officer and the other hitting the envoy in the head. The assailant was shot by the bodyguard, two others escaped but were arrested in Brixton. Robert Maxwell was in the hotel at the time, but, alas escaped unscathed.

On 3 June 1931 saw the world’s first outside broadcast as the BBC transmitted live pictures of the Epsom Derby using a single van-mounted camera

William Wallace, commemorated in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, was the first to suffer the ignominious fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered

The oldest church in the City All Hallows by the Tower was founded in 675 the undercroft has Roman pavement dating from the 2nd century

Tube has a unique species of mosquito identified by Queen Mary and Westfield College it feeds off rats and humans is unable to breed with other species

The night before the 1911 census suffragette Emily Davison hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons so she could claim that was her address

On 3 June 1970 Kink’s Ray Davies made round trip New York-London to change word in Lola (Coca-Cola to Cherry Cola) because of BBC commercial reference ban

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand was known as the home of chess, its serving practise-wheeling food out under silver domes-originates avoiding disturbing a game of chess

The Surbiton Club hired a ‘marker’ for its billiard room with an allowance of 18 gallons on beer a month, the first recruit, unsurprisingly was sacked for drunkenness

In cockney rhyming slang the Underground is known as the Oxo (Cube/ Tube), and there are only two tube station names that contain all five vowels: Mansion House, and South Ealing

By 1883 Fleet Street’s newspapers produced 15 morning dailies, 9 evening papers and 383 weekly publications, of which 50 were local rags

Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, was so taken with the Lambeth Walk that he hired an English girl to teach him the dance in Milan

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.