On 9 June 1975 in a 4-week experiment, the first live transmission was broadcast of Parliament by BBC Radio. Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn was the first minister to be questioned in Parliament live on air, starting a debate which some listeners said was difficult to follow on radio. The idea of broadcasting the proceedings of Parliament was first suggested in the 1920s, but permission was refused.

On 9 June 1978 a Gutenberg Bible (1 of 21) was sold in London for $2.4 million. It now resides in Stuttgart and worth £30 million

Section 54 of The Metropolitan Police Act 1839 makes it an offence to carry a plank across the pavement in London. Maximum fine £500

Southwark Street laid out in 1862 by Sir Joseph Bazalgette was the first street in London with water and gas pipes in the middle of the road

Famous cook ‘Mrs Beeton’ who published The Book of Household Management, was born at 24 Milk Street, off Cheapside as Isabella Mayson

In 1940 Winston Churchill met at St. Ermin’s Hotel promising to ‘Set Europe Ablaze’ the genesis of the SOE which ultimately became the SAS

The stage version of Susan Hill’s novel The Woman In Black is the second-longest running West End show after Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap

The Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho is named after the 13 provinces (cantons) of Switzerland (streets around pub were once big watch-making area)

On 9 June 1905 Charlton Athletic Football Club was formed by a group of teenagers on East Street (later known as Eastmoor Street)

On 9 June 1958 The Queen opened revamped Gatwick Airport, arriving by air from Heathrow. The government had decreed that Gatwick should be London’s second airport, it had been closed for the major re-development

Twinings tea shop on the Strand has an old money chest in its in-store museum with the letters ‘T.I.P.’ short for ‘To Improve Promptness’

Some of the TV cables at Buckingham Palace for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were installed by a ferret

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 26 May 1906 Vauxhall Bridge was opened by The Prince of Wales. Finished 5-years behind schedule it has decorated on its arches eight allegorical figures: agriculture; architecture; engineering; pottery; education; fine arts sciences; and bizarrely local government. Architecture features a model of St. Paul’s, but you have to lean over the parapet to see it. It was the first bridge to incorporate tram lines.

On 26 May 1868 Fenian Michael Barrett, found guilty of blowing up the Clerkenwell House of Detention was the last man to be hanged publicly

Under the 1752 Murder Act: The Company of Surgeons, Barts and St Thomas Hospitals were each entitled to 10 hanged corpses a year

The glazed-iron roof of Royal Albert Hall measures 20,000 sq.ft. and was at the time of building the largest unsupported glass dome in the world

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

Within 2 years from the start of World War II twenty-six per cent of London’s pets were destroyed, a quarter of a mile queue formed outside a Wood Green vets

The leather for Lady Penelope’s Thunderbirds limousine came from Bridge Weir Leather, the same company that upholsters Parliament’s benches

The short Holywell Street was the centre for the Victorian gay porn trade, with an estimated 57 pornography shops in as many yards

The museum at Lord’s Long Room has a perfume jar containing the original Ashes, and a stuffed sparrow bowled out in 1936 by Jehangir Khan

On 26 May 1950 the Government ended petrol rationing, the motoring organisations dubbed it VP (Victory for Petrol) Day

South Bank’s Anchor Brewery, once the largest brewery in the world, all that remains is the old brewery tap the Anchor Tavern on Park Street

Dukes Hotel, once part of St. James’s Palace, has knee height locks on doors because the staff used to have to enter and exit whilst bowing

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 19 May 2004, just weeks after a £600,000 security screen was installed at the public gallery of the House of Commons protesters threw condoms full of purple flour hitting Tony Blair during Prime Minister’s Questions. It was realised that the front three rows of the public viewing gallery, normally reserved for ambassadors was not behind the screen. It was the most serious attack since CS gas was thrown into the chamber 30 years previously.

On 19 May 1649 the Rump Parliament passed an Act to turn England into a Republic, it lasted 11 years before we regained our senses

In 1678 the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was found on Greenberry Hill later three were hanged for the murder their names Green, Berry, Hill

The 19 May is St Dunstan’s Day celebrating the Benedictine Bishop of London who granted a charter authorising the building of Westminster Abbey

Britain’s first fatal car crash took place on Grove Hill, Harrow. Today a plaque on the spot warns drivers to take heed

On 19 May 1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife oe Henry VIII, was beheaded at the Tower of London for alleged adultery

Douglas Adams based characters of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe on Islington where he lived, Hotblack Desiato was an estate agent

The Apollo 11 crew’s first alcoholic drink back on Earth was the Moonwalk, invented by Joe Gilmore of London’s Savoy hotel

On 19 May 2007 The new Wembley Stadium ‘officially’ opened for the FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Manchester United (1-0)

Demonstrating a new crossing in Camden aimed at reducing pedestrian road deaths Transport Minister Hore-Belisha was nearly knocked down

Many of the streets in the city were named after the particular trade which practiced there, for example Threadneedle Street was the tailor’s district

When John Noakes climbed Nelson’s Column (removing pigeon poo) for TV’s Blue Peter a sound engineer didn’t record the stunt, Noakes had to reclimb all over again

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 12 May 1891 prominent member of the National Vigilance Association, an anti-vice pressure group, Captain Edmund Verney, MP, was expelled from The House of Commons. He had pleaded guilty to conspiring to procure, for corrupt and immoral purposes, a girl of nineteen and was sentenced to one year of imprisonment. It’s good to see that today not much has changed with our political leaders.

On 12 May 1906 John Bull Magazine was first published designed to bring satire and political comment to its readers

When Julian Assange was holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy those visiting included Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga, Eric Cantona and Nigel Farage

On Knight’s Road in Docklands, the world’s largest tin of syrup is affixed to Tate & Lyle’s factory producing the world’s oldest branded product

The finest dentures of 19th-century London contained real human teeth, some gleaned from casualties of the Battle of Waterloo

The Wiener Library, Russell Square contains 1 million items relating to the Holocaust, it is the world’s oldest library of related material

Now charmingly inaccurate, the life-sized models of dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park, constructed in the 1850s were the first in the world

The basement at 27 Endell Street was once the animal depot for West End theatres once 2 bulls escaped liberating a menagerie on Soho streets

Mitcham Cricket Club has played on the world’s oldest cricket pitch since 1685, and today is still an active cricket club

Amersham is the second most westerly tube station, the highest at 147 metres above sea level and the second furthest Underground station from central London

Burrell & Co on Blasker Walk in Docklands once manufactured dyes, red smoke from the chimneys would tint the local pigeons rose-pink

Wartime song A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square was almost certainly a robin, the only town bird known to sing at night

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 5 May 1980 Britain realised it had an elite force when the SAS successfully stormed the terrorist-held Iranian Embassy in Princes Gate after one of the hostages was killed and his body thrown out of the embassy. The soldiers later faced accusations of unnecessarily killing two of the five, but an inquest into the deaths eventually cleared the SAS of any blame. The sole remaining gunman was prosecuted and served 27 years in British prisons.

On 5 May 1760 for murdering a servant serving bad oysters Earl Ferrers got the hangman’s drop breaking the neck as opposed to a slow throttle

Forty Elephants were a gang of prolific female shoplifters from the 1920s who stashed stolen goods in specially adapted bloomers

London’s railings used to be brightly coloured. On the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria decreed that they all be painted black

In his will Dickens stipulated that no monuments be erected to his memory, that’s why London has no statues of one of its greatest writers

The American Declaration of Independence was printed in Caslon typeface designed in Chiswell Street by William Caslon, it’s now a Tesco

In 17th century London antics in St. James’s Park were put to verse: ‘Nightly now beneath their shade/Are buggeries, rapes and incests made’

Opening in 1910 with 2,286 seats the London Palladium had its own telephone system, so patrons could talk to each other

A white strip near BBC White City marks the finish of the world’s first modern marathon in 1908 originally 25 miles extended to 26 miles 385 yards

Traffic congestion in 18th century led to a law being passed to make all traffic on London Bridge keep to the left in order to reduce collisions, it was incorporated into the Highway Act of 1835

On 5 May French couturier Coco Chanel choose today to launch her first perfume No 5, for obvious reasons

On 5 May 1930 Amy Johnson took off from Croydon, in her Gypsy Moth plane ‘Jason’. She became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, arriving on 24th May

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.