On 14 January 1896 the first public film show to an audience took place at the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, Birt Acres, a Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society demonstrated his Kineopticon system to Society members and their wives. Acres had last year previously made the first successful movie in Britain filming Clovelly Cottage outside his Barnet home. He is credited with inventing the first amateur cine camera.

On 14 January 1926 Actor Warren Mitchell was born Stoke Newington he was of Russian Jewish descent and originally surnamed Misell

Wapping’s Execution Dock was similar to that at Tyburn and Newgate but dealt with executions for piracy, murder at sea and mutiny

Smithfield Market was designed by Sir Horace Jones who also designed Billingsgate and Leadenhall markets and Tower Bridge

There is a mosquito named after the Tube the London Underground mosquito, which was found in the London Underground. notable for its assault of Londoners sleeping in the Underground during the Blitz

The Red Flag was inspired by a guard’s flag at Charing Cross station as the song’s writer travelled home from a dock strike meeting in 1889

The Lyric Theatre Shaftesbury in Avenue was built in 1886 on the site of William Hunter’s dissecting room and anatomy theatre

Samuel Scott’s speciality was tying a noose around his neck jumping off dancing in the air and returning safely-at Waterloo bridge – he didn’t

In 1874 an ice rink, the Glacarium, opened on the King’s Road, Chelsea. Freezing was achieved by means of a rotary engine and pump

There were no loos on early trains with foresight those with weak bladders purchased ‘travelling conveniences’ of rubber strapped to the leg

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge when a more humble Kate Middleton worked as a buyer at Jigsaw Clothing Store, 9 Argyll Street, Regent Street

On 14 January 1929 two Harley Street surgeons committed suicide by cutting their own throats after donating their instruments to a hospital

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 January 1928 a perfect storm hit London. Heavy snow, followed by a sudden thaw with heavy rain combined with a high spring tide and a storm surge raised the water levels on the Thames. A massive flood ensued, water overflowed from the City to Putney and Hammersmith, fourteen people drowned and 4,000 were made homeless. The disaster contributed to the eventual building of the Thames Barrier.

On 7 January 1618 Sir Francis Bacon, one of the cleverest of his generation, was made Lord Chancellor of England by his patron King James I.

A punishment in London’s Victorian prisons was oakum picking. Prisoners were given old ships’ rope with the task of unpicking the strands

On Admiralty Arch is a small nose said to be Lord Nelson’s second nose – it’s not. Placed there in 1997 by an artist as a form of protest

In 1924, the first baby was born on the Underground, on a train at Elephant and Castle on the Bakerloo Line

Harold Wilson always drank Lucozade during speeches – but from a blue glass, as he worried that in a clear one it would look like Scotch

Victorian poet Swinburne and artist Rosetti  shared 16 Cheyne Walk Chelsea with Rosetti’s menagerie including a pet wombat

London’s oldest hotel Claridge’s opened as Mivart’s Hotel in 1812 by French chef Jacques Mivart. He sold out to William Claridge in 1838

Charlton means ‘homestead belonging to the churls’. Churls were the lowest rank of freeman during medieval times

On the Metropolitan line, trains can reach over 60mph but the average is a mere 20.5 miles per hour including stops

Inventor Richard Arkwright who with John Kay invented the spinning-frame that produced a strong cotton thread lived at 8 Adam Street, Strand

There is evidence to show that in medieval London, off Cheapside, there was a road, probably frequented by prostitutes, named Gropecunt Lane

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 31 December 1853 celebrating the installation of life-sized dinosaur models at Sydenham Park. A 20  strong dinner party was held inside the stomach of the partly completed a concrete iguanodon made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins of the Crystal Palace Company. The model was surrounded by a tent decorated with a chandelier and four plaques honouring famous palaeontologists. Guests were served by waiters, what was on the menu is unknown.

On the 31 December 1923 the chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC and every evening since are transmitted live via a microphone

On 31 December 1919 the first woman law student was admitted to study at Lincoln’s Inn which had been in existence since at least 1422

Westminster Catholic Cathedral, Victoria Street stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1884

In 1952 pollution was so bad a theatre performance at Sadler’s Wells had to be abandoned as smog crept into the auditorium

The Palace of Westminster has 8 bars, 6 restaurants, 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range

The harrowing battle scenes in the last hour of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket were filmed at Beckton Gas a latticework and appropriate advertising hoardings added make it believable

Russian for railway station ‘vokzal’ derives from Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens as its first track went from St. Petersburg to a pleasure garden

Arsenal are the only football team to have a Tube station named after them, called Gillespie Road it was renamed in 1932 when the team went to Highbury

Heathrow Airport is so named because the land it was built on was once a sleepy hamlet called Heath Row

Cock Lane didn’t get its name due to any association with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution

Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg who lived off Farringdon Road predicted there would be a special part in heaven reserved for the English

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 24 December 1997 Home Secretary, Jack Straw’s 17-year-old son was given police bail after a Daily Mirror journalist following an anonymous tip-off had met him in a pub and been offered a small chunk of cannabis resin for £10 claiming it was “good strong hash”. The editor of the Mirror had phoned Jack Straw to confront them with the story and the minister apparently insisted that his son received no special privileges.

On 24 December 1832 thirteen-year-old Princess Victoria recorded in her diary at Buckingham Palace ‘we then went into the drawing room . . . on tables were placed two trees hung with lights ad sugar ornaments’

The first man to wear a top hat in public caused so much hysteria and commotion in St. James’ that he was arrested for disturbing the peace

During World War II number 77 Baker Street was requisitioned by the Special Operations Executive, using it as a homing station for message-carrying pigeons

Aldgate tube station is built on the site of a plague pit mentioned by Daniel Defoe in Journal of a Plague Year in which over a thousand were buried

The Penderel Oak, High Holborn is named after yeoman farmer, Richard Penderel, who helped Charles II escape by hiding him in a wood

The opening scene in The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night was shot at Marylebone Station not Liverpool’s Lime Street as depicted

In the mid-19th century Thomas Barry was famous for sailing between Westminster and Vauxhall Bridges in a tub towed by four geese

Smithfield was once the play area of London, where jousting and tournaments took place, later it would be where William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered

The Thames still handles more material by tonnage annually than all of London’s airports combined, the equivalent to 400,000 lorries every year

As a boy Charles Dickens worked in a boot polish or blacking factory on Villiers Street off the Strand. Embankment station now occupies the site

Diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666

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 17 December 1849 the world’s first bowler hat was sold by James Lock & Co., hatters of St. James’s Street. Created for Edward Coke, younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester for his gamekeepers. It was designed by hat-makers Thomas & William Bowler. To ensure it fulfilled his brief of protecting the wearer from low hanging branches Coke is said to have twice stamped on the hat’s crown before parting with his 12/-.

On 17 December 1983 an IRA bomb exploded outside Harrod’s, killing six and injuring 90, the car containing the bomb was projected onto the 5th floor of an adjoining building

In 1952 a Nigerian visitor was fined £50 for committing an indecent act with a pigeon in Trafalgar Square and £10 for having it for tea

Caxton Hall has been the venue for celebrity weddings including Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland. Diana Dors liked it so much she used it twice!

Suicide victims were once buried at crossroads to bring absolution, last person was Abel Griffiths interred at Grosvenor Place/Lower Grosvenor Place 1823

In December 2005 the London Eye was lit pink in celebration of the first Civil Partnership performed on the wheel

The Proms came to the Royal Albert Hall in 1941 from the Queen’s Hall in Marylebone which was bombed in the Blitz

Before the statue of Nelson was placed on top of the 170-foot-tall column in Trafalgar Square in 1842, 14 stonemasons had dinner at the top

The place name Millwall originates from the windmills that previously lined the western embankment of the Isle of Dogs

There was great opposition to the building the London underground from Victorian Churchmen because they thought it would ‘disturb the devil’

Kenneth Williams was once employed as an apprentice draughtsman at Stanford’s Map Shop at 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden

Before he got the part of James Bond, Roger Moore moved into a new house where he inherited a telephone number ending ‘007’

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.