On 9 July 1982 Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace and spent 10 minutes talking to the Queen in her bedroom. He scaled the walls around the palace and shinned a drain-pipe up to the Queen’s private apartments. Barefooted and wearing a t-shirt the unemployed father of four evaded electronic alarms before disturbing the Queen by opening a curtain. It was the first time that private royal apartments had been penetrated since Queen Victoria’s reign.

On 9 July 1991 a bank collapsed costing taxpayers millions, the closure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International lost about 20 local councils up to £30 million in investments

On 9 July 1864 England’s 1st railway murder, 70 year old bank clerk Thomas Briggs body was found on the tracks near Hackney Wick

The Hanger Lane Gyratory System known as Malfunction Junction is so complicated was voted Britain’s scariest junction by anxious motorists

Karl Marx one of the many famous residents at Highgate Cemetery, his tomb has been bombed twice, in 1965 and 1970

St Mary Woolnoth’s past rector was reformed former slave-trader John Newton friend of William Wilberforce and author of hymn Amazing Grace

Founded in 1811 and designed by Sir John Soane, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is the oldest purpose-built gallery in Britain

Belsize House became a byword for scandal in the 1720s notorious for immoral parties, extravagant feasts, mud-wrestling and illegal gambling

On 9 July 1877 the first Wimbledon Championships began with a single event-The Gentlemen’s Singles Tournament, won by Spencer Gore, aged 27 against 22 competitors each paying a guinea to enter

Greenford station remains the only one on the Underground with wooden escalators all others were removed after large fire at King’s Cross

Jacob Cohen opened his first Tesco in Burnt Oak combining the initials of his tea supplier T.E. Stockwell with his surname’s first letters

In a bizarre episode Gunnersbury Station was badly damaged in 1954 when a tornado ripped off its roof injuring six people

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 2 July 1900 one of the defining icons of sartorial elegance in the 20th century was founded. Twenty-seven year old Austin Reed opened a gents outfitters in Fenchurch Street. By 1908 he had three shops, three years later he opened his flagship store in Regent Street. Fashions change and by April 2016 Austin Reed went into administration with the inevitable closure of all its 120 shops. Suit maker to Winston Churchill and The Beatles was no more.

On 2 July 1995 American tennis player Jeff Turango was fined £10,000 by Wimbledon authorities after his wife slapped an umpire

The Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road was where Ronnie Kray killed George Cornell by shooting him through the eye

Waterstone’s on Piccadilly was the inspiration for Are You Being Served? Writer Jeremy Lloyd worked there when it was Simpsons dept store

In the graveyard of Morden College, Blackheath is buried John Thompson ‘Yeoman of the Mouth’ (food taster) to Charles II and James I

Bethnal Green North East MP Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree (aka Bow and Agree) was the UK’s first Asian Tory MP from 1895 to 1906

One of the first shopping streets to be lit by electricity was Electric Avenue, Brixton made famous by Eddie Grant’s 1981 Electric Avenue

In The Shakespeare’s Head, Covent Garden the 4th Earl of Sandwich requested bread and meat thus creating the first ever sandwich

West Ham FC was founded in 1895 by workers Thames Ironworks who hammered iron to build ships so named ‘The Hammers’

The world’s first school bus (horse drawn) was set up to run between Newington Academy for Girls and Gracechurch Street Meeting House in 1827

A young Charles Dickens worked as a legal clerk in Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn where experience led him to call the law ‘an ass’

Maurice Micklewhite changed his name to Michael Caine after seeing a poster in Leicester Square advertising The Caine Mutiny

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.