On the 14 July 1989 a turnip killed 56-year-old Leslie Mervy whilst shopping in East London, the turnip was thrown from a passing car, he suffered a punctured lung and a rib broken in three places. After being discharged from hospital his condition deteriorated and he died of a ruptured spleen on 23 July. Detective Superintendent Graham Howard said the death was being investigated as a murder, London’s only case of death by turnip.

On 14 July 1921 The Times reported that cocktails drunk before meals were harmful, and shockingly that 50 per cent of consumers were women

At 6ft 7ins Bank of England clerk William Jenkins fearing bodysnatchers offered a 200 guineas advance to the Bank of England to be buried in the Bank’s garden

Huge flocks of starlings are now rare, called ‘murmuration’ as 100,000 birds choose where to sleep, they once stopped Big Ben by perching on the hands

In 1653 Old Parr was buried at Westminster Abbey at the reputed age of 152, Charles I accorded this honour having met the world’s oldest man

Should a whale become stranded on the Thames foreshore the King may claim its head, his Queen the body – presumably to make her corset stays

Prince Albert lent Thomas Thorneycroft the horses on which to model those being reined in by Queen Boudicca sculpture on Victoria Embankment

Buck’s Club founded in 1919 by returning army officers was said to be the place where Buck’s Fizz was invented by its barman called McCarry

The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street was called The Bucket of Blood as hidden away in an alley made it the ideal venue for illegal prize fights

Opened in 1863 the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farrington was the world’s first urban underground passenger-carrying railway

London’s first drive-in bank for lazy motorists was installed by Drummond’s Bank housed in a building adjacent to Admiralty Arch

Battersea Dogs’ Home was founded in Holloway in 1860 by Mary Tealby as ‘The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs’

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 7 July 2005, a series of bomb attacks on London’s transport network killed 56 people and injured 784 others. Three explosions on the Underground and a blast on a double decker bus in Tavistock Square. The explosions were caused by homemade organic peroxide-based devices packed into backpacks. The bombings were followed two weeks later by a series of attempted attacks that failed to cause injury or damage.

On 7 July 1607 the National Anthem was sung for the first time at Merchant Taylor’s Hall to James I by members of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal

Over the last 200 years, there have been three assassination attempts on Constitution Hill, a road under half a mile long

LSO St Lukes, formerly St Luke’s church in Old Street, was once nicknamed ‘Lousy Luke’s’ due to the flea on the weathervane

David Livingstone is buried in Westminster Abbey – but his heart is buried in Africa – the tribe he’d befriended said it belonged there

Stanley Baldwin is the only British Prime Minister ever to serve under three different monarchs: George V; Edward VIII; George V

By Goldsmith’s Chambers in Inner Temple, a board lists fictional residents from author John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey

Holland Park was a private estate attached to Holland House and became a public park after the house was bombed in World War II

On 7 July 1985 at seventeen Boris Becker won Wimbledon, the youngest ever player to win, he was also the first German ever to win the title, and the first unseeded player

The only station name common to both London Tube and Paris Metro is Temple. It is not St Paul’s – that’s Saint-Paul

St Andrew’s church in Hornchurch has a stained glass window depicting a red Ford Fiesta, in tribute to the firm’s nearby factory

Sewardstone north of Chingford is the only place with a London postcode (E4) that lies outside Greater London

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 30 June 1992 Margaret Thatcher took her place in the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. In her first debate she spoke out against the government on the Maastricht Treaty. She would be proved right, its adoption gave rise to Ukip and ultimately the Referendum to leave the EU. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister in 1979, and the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century.

On 30 June 1937 the British emergency number 999 was introduced, the first telephone system of its kind in the world

On 30 June 1967 a sky-blue Bentley collected Mick Jagger from the Scrubs and Keith Richards from Brixton after doing time for drugs

On 30 June 1894, under a cloudless sky, Tower Bridge was officially opened by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII)

On Westminster Bridge Road is the entrance to an old station from where passengers took their last journey to Brookwood Cemetery

The Ayrton Light atop Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower (known as Big Ben) shines to show that the House is sitting

When Ellen Terry visited Whistler’s Chelsea studio Oscar Wilde described seeing her arrive in the full regalia of Lady Macbeth

King James I kept elephants in St James’s Park. They were allowed a gallon of wine a day each to get through the English winter

Dash to Pope’s Road, Brixton in September to watch the Brixton Bolt, see if you can beat Usain’s 100 metre time of 9.58

Jubilee Line trains have been decorated for the Jubilee – appropriate really, as line originally named for 1977 one (hence silver on map)

The Castle pub in Farringdon holds a pawnbrokers licence granted by George IV when he left a heirloom in lieu of a gambling loan

During the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys buried his prized possession, a chunk of parmesan cheese, in his back garden

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 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.