On 23 July 1863 Alexandra Park named after Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII officially opened with a flower and fruit show along with other entertainments. The Times described it as ‘The Bois de Boulogne of Holloway or Highgate’. Until September 1970, it hosted horse racing, including many evening meetings televised by the BBC. The racecourse was nicknamed ‘the Frying Pan’ owing to its shape, its most prestigious race was the London Cup.

On 23 July 1690 at aged 76 Richard Gibson, court dwarf to Charles I died. His wife Anne Shepherd dwarf to Queen Henrietta Maria suvvived him by 10 years

The London Silver Vaults subterranean strongrooms have never been broken into, they are surrounded by steel-lined walls over 1-metre thick

Staple Inn located next to Chancery Lane Station is the only surviving Inn of Chancery its lopsided timber-framed façade dating back to 1545

On 23 July 2011 the greatest singer of the generation, Amy Winehouse, the daughter of a London cabbie, was found dead in her Camden apartment

In 2008 a one ton bomb found at Bromley-by-Bow during railway work, the largest found in 30 years was detonated by controlled explosion after it started ticking

Tony Hancock, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Bruce Forsyth and Tommy Cooper all had their first success at the Windmill Theatre

The London Silver Vaults have more than 40 subterranean shops which reputedly hold the largest collection of silver for sale in the world

The first Wimbledon Championships were suspended for the weekend so as not to clash with the annual Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord’s

Heathrow was the world’s first airport connected to an underground railway when what was known as Heathrow Central opened in December 1977

Ealing Studios is the world’s oldest working film studios established in 1931 by the theatre producer Basil Dean

The Blind Beggar pub, Whitechapel est. 1654 takes its name from a ballad was reputedly built on the spot where Lord Montford used to beg

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 July 1910 the body of Thomas Atherston was found dead with gunshot wounds. Separated from his wife and their four children he had been living with actress Elizabeth Earles in Battersea. After an argument Earle threw him out and promptly started having an affair with one of his sons. Atherston was found dead in the adjoining apartment to his ex-lover, the police believed that he had been spying on the two lovers and disturbed a burglar.

On 16 July 1877 Spencer Gore won the first ever Wimbledon tennis tournament (men only) after a delay of three days due to rain

The Clink England’s first prison was notorious for its brutality, received its name from the clinking of prisoners’ manacles and chains

In 1110 Queen Matilda was crossing a ford at modern Bow, falling from her horse into the river the King Henry I ordered a bow-shaped bridge

A Black Death researcher claims the lack of rat corpses in London and the speed of contagion proves that it was spread by humans killing 40,000 in London

So many refugees arrived in the 1870/80s 150 synagogues were built and over 135,000 Jews were crammed into two square miles of the East End

In 1967 Finsbury Park was the setting for Jimi Hendrix’s first foray into his signature on stage guitar pyromania

18th century Fulham’s reputation for debauchery, gambling and prostitution echoes of which are used in gambling parlance, fulham means loaded dice

Steve Galloway was a 1980s semi-pro footballer who worked in the City – as part of his training NatWest let him run up their tower every day

At Heathrow the first aircraft to take off was a converted Lancaster bomber for Buenos Aires, passengers walked along duckboards over muddy airfield

In the early 20th century Great Portland Street earned the nickname Motor Row thanks to the 33 car showrooms that spanned its length

The Bank of England stores the country’s gold reserves in a subterranean crypt known as The Vault with a floor area over seven acres

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 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.

On 25 June 2005 at 1.30 am a passer by noticed something unusual on the top of a crane erected in Dulwich. The police and fire brigade were called and established the little bundle lying 130ft up in the air was, in fact, a 15-year-old girl who had slept walked from her home. The person who spotted her feared she was about to throw herself off but when a firefighter climbed the crane he found her curled up asleep on top of the concrete counterweight.

On 25 June 1953 John Christie was sentenced to hang for murdering his wife and then hiding her body under the floorboards of their Notting Hill home in London

Smoking was banned on the Underground as a result of the King’s Cross fire in November 1987 which killed 31 people. A discarded match was thought to be the cause of that inferno

There are plaques in London to stars of the Carry On films including Joan Sims in Kensington and Hattie Jacques in Earls Court

On 25 June 1750 William Green, a weaver, accidentally lost his balance at The Monument and fell to his death

During World War II Eastenders would dine on whale meat as it was one ‘meat’ that was in abundance and not rationed the same as beef

On 25 June 1891 Strand Magazine in Burleigh St. published the first Sherlock Holmes short story by Arthur Conan Doyle – A Scandal In Bohemia

It was on Jack Smith’s Berwick Street market stall that the first grapefruit was introduced to London and England in 1890

One of the levels in Tomb Raider 3 is set in the disused Aldwych tube station, featuring scenes of Lara Croft killing rats

It’s proximity to Smithfield Market was a determining factor as to why Farringdon was chosen as the eastern terminus of the first tube line

Edward Johnston designed the typeface for the London Underground in 1916. The font he came up with is still in use today it’s called Johnston Sans

The term Cockney comes from Middle English cockeney, meaning misshapen eggs and was used by country folk to deride those born in the City

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.