On 22 March 1963 the Beatles debut studio album, Please, Please Me was released. After discovering that the Cavern Club in Liverpool was unsuitable for live recording purposes they recorded live at EMI Studios in Abbey Road. At 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963, the Beatles began working their way through their live set song by song, the number of takes varying on each, and finished at 10:45 pm – less than 13 hours later.

On 22 March 1888 the English Football League was formed at a meeting instigated by Aston Villa of 12 clubs in the Anderton Hotel, Fleet Street

The average weight of a City of London policeman in the early 20th century was twenty-two stone, we have no record of their current size

A clock tower in Market Road N7 is all that remains of the market which replaced Smithfield as London’s live cattle market in 1855

According to the burial register at St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch Thomas Cam died in 1588 at the ripe old age of 207

On 22 March 1963 The Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denied any impropriety with the model, Christine Keeler

Itchycoo Park (recorded by the Small Faces) is actually Manor Park Cemetery, Sebert Road, Forest Gate and not some bucolic scene

On Tower Hill is an entrance to the 1870 Tower Subway, there you could ride under the river in a carriage pulled by cable

Harold Thornton invented table football in 1922 attempting to recreate Spurs with a box of matches, play it at Bar Kick, Shoreditch High Street

A 2011 study suggested 30 per cent of passengers take longer routes due to the out-of-scale distances on the Tube map

Vine Street, Spitalfields was where John Dolland of Dolland and Aitchison opened his optical workshop in the 1740s

On 22 March 1942 London’s Warship Week was launched in Trafalgar Square with the aim to raise £125m to fund the war, the first day it raised £27 million

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 15 March 1909 American retailer, H. Gordon Selfridge opened his new store in the unfashionable west-end of Oxford Street. His newly built department store boasted over half-a-million square feet of retail space. Gordon Selfridge coined two mottos ‘Only – shopping days until Christmas’ and ‘Business as usual’. He would later unsuccessfully attempt to get Bond Street Underground Station renamed Selfridge’s.

On 15 March 1824 the first piles driven in to River Thames of coffer dams for construction of Sir John Rennie’s new London Bridge

Suicides (a crime) used to be buried at crossroads – the last one in London (1823) was outside the garden wall of Buckingham Palace (then House)

The Monument a memorial to the Great Fire, the 202ft pillar designed by Wren is a telescope watch the cam on http://www.themonumentview.net/

Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham is a direct descendant of John Bellingham the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812

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

On 15 March 1932 Henry Hall and his dance orchestra performed the first musical programme from the new Broadcasting House in Langham Place

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

On Shrove Tuesday charity teams race up and down Dray Walk, Spitalfields flipping pancakes. The winning team receives an engraved frying pan

Edward Johnston designed the typeface for the London Underground in 1916. The design he came up with is still in use today, named Johnson

Following Prince Philip’s declaration that it was unmanly to do so royal footmen at Buckingham Palace no longer powder their hair

M25: 33 junctions; 6 counties; 117 miles, driving at 70 mph without braking it takes 1 hour 40 minutes to complete one lap of the motorway

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 8 March 1941, during a German air raid, two bombs hurtled down a ventilation shaft straight onto the dance floor soon after the start of a performance at the Café de Paris in Coventry Street, the venue was described as a ‘sumptuous, subterranean haunt of debs and celebs. A bomb exploded directly in front of band leader Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson, 33 members of staff, band members and revellers were killed and at least 100 injured.

On 8 March 1934, the London County Council was taken over by Labour, where it remained the majority party until its abolishment in 1965

Wallace Walk traces a 4-mile route that William Wallace of Braveheart fame took from his trial at Westminster to his execution in Smithfield

Oliver Cromwell’s statute outside Westminster Hall depicts him standing without a horse but wearing his spurs upside down

The Monument was erected in memory of The Great Fire of London which 5 people died, 6 people have since fallen to their deaths from the top

Within 2 years of the start of World War II 26 per cent of London’s pets were destroyed, a quarter of a mile queue formed outside a Wood Green vets

Such was its worldwide renown that in the early days of the Savoy Hotel the house orchestra was led by Johann Strauss

Coram’s Fields the remnant of the Children’s Foundling Hospital only allows adults into its grounds if they are accompanied by a child

On Shrove Tuesday charity teams race up and down Dray Walk, Spitalfields flipping pancakes. The winning team receives an engraved frying pan

Queensway Station has its main entrance in Bayswater Road and Bayswater Station has its entrance in Queensway

In 1941 a new 3-mile stretch of the Central Line tunnel – Gants Hill to Leytonstone was given to Plessey for use as an underground factory

Cabbies are permitted to ask a police constable to shield them with his (or her) cape when urinating against the vehicle in a seemly fashion

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 1 March 1966 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callaghan announced in Parliament the “historic and momentous” decision to change to decimal coinage. The switch to be implemented in February 1971 and the £1 retained being divided into units called either ‘cents’ or ‘new pennies’. The changeover was estimated to cost £120 million. Companies obliged to invest in new equipment would not be compensated.

On 1 March 1711 the first edition of the Spectator founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele was published

On 1 March 1950 nuclear scientist, Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs, was jailed for 14 years at the Old Bailey for spying for the Soviet Union

The Monument stands on the site of St Margaret’s, the first church to burn down during the Great Fire of 1666, its height is exactly the distance it stands from the start of the fire

Clerkenwell is named after the ‘Clerk’s Well’ that supplied Charterhouse. It can be seen through the window of Well Court, Farringdon Lane

Suffragette Emily Davison died beneath the King’s horse at Epsom, recent research suggests she was attaching a sash, not martyring herself

On 1 March 1968 the first performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Old Assembly Hall, Colet Court was shown

Britain’s first purpose-built department store, Bon Marché, was built in Brixton in 1877 on the proceeds of racehorse winnings

In March1905 in The Butcher’s Hook pub Gus Mears & co held a meeting that decided a name for his newly formed football club – Chelsea FC

M25 J8: Reigate Hill Interchange has the longest motorway slip road in the country climbing up Reigate Hill for 1.5 miles to a roundabout

As late as the 1940s, waiters at the Savoy Hotel were forbidden from wearing watches, rings, spectacles or false teeth

St. Ethelburga’s font is inscribed with the longest known Greek palindrome: NI?ON ANOMHMTA MH MONAN O?IN ‘Cleanse my sins, not just my face’

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 22 February 1864, the last mass execution of condemned men outside Newgate jail took place. Found guilty of the murder of the captain of the ship Flowery Land Messrs. Blanco, Leone, Duranno, Lopez and Watts were hanged. The people of London would have to find their entertainment elsewhere in future and not before time, with the event almost as dangerous for spectators as the condemned – see below.

On 22 February 1907 London’s first taxi cabs with meters began operating in the capital to ensure overcharging did not occur

On 22 February 1807 40,000 watched Owen Haggerty and John Holloway be hanged outside Newgate in a panic more than 30 were trampled to death

The OXO tower restaurant has 3 windows advertising the iconic cube. Put up to avoid the ban in 1930 of advertising on the side of buildings

When one drinks a glass of London tapwater it has typically already passed through nine other people, just where it goes after you is a matter for speculation

On 22 February 1913 Suffragette Ella Stevenson arrested by Detectives Pride and Cock for placing dangerous substances in a letterbox

Dr Samuel Johnson once owned 17 properties in London, only one of which survives – Dr Johnson’s Memorial House in Gough Square

The world’s first plate-glass shop window was installed in 1801 by men’s outfitter Francis Place at 16 Charing Cross Road

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum has possibly the largest collection of tennis-related artefacts in the world, including ‘The Whites of Wimbledon’ the changing styles of Wimbledon outfits and tennis fashion

The Corporation of Coachmen – London’s black cabs predecessor first secured a charter from Cromwell to ply for hire within London in 1639

Twining Teas opened 1707 on the Strand sold tea to Queen Anne and is the oldest business in Britain operating from their original premises

London’s oldest petrol station was the Village Green, Bloomsbury which opened in 1926, built for The Duke of Bedford on his London Estate

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.