On 5 June 1929 Margaret Bondfield, women’s campaigner and MP, became the first woman to be a minister, under Ramsay Macdonald, as Minister for Labour, and the first woman to become a Privy Councillor

On 5 June 1963 John Profumo resigned as Secretary for War after admitting he had lied over his affair with Christine Keeler

Bow Street was the only police station to have white lights outside instead of the traditional blue – they were ordered by Queen Victoria

The golden flames on top of St. Paul’s lean in the direction the wind was blowing on the night of the Great Fire

In 1637 playwright Ben Jonson was buried upright in Westminster Abbey as he couldn’t afford to pay for a larger space

London’s epic Parliament Square peace protestor (no one else can permanently stay there) Brian Haw, born 1949 stood there since 2 June 2001 until his death in 2011

Harry Potter’s magic luggage trolley sticks out of a wall between platforms 8/9 not 9/10 because J. K.Rowling was thinking of Euston

Until recently Londoners consumed a prodigious amount of champagne, by volume they equalled the entire amount exported by France to America

In the 18th century at the Cat & Mutton, Broadway Market hosted the Soapy Pig Swinging Contest, drovers lathered a pig’s tail and hurled it

The colourful benches on the Southeastern High Speed platform in St Pancras are the five chopped-up Olympic rings once hanging there in 2012

Isaac Newton lived at 87 Jermyn Street, St. James when he worked at the Royal Mint where he was tasked with prosecuting counterfeiters

On 5 June 1939 an assassin attempted to shoot the Duchess of Kent she didn’t realise what was happening and went to see Wuthering Heights

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 29 May 1884 at the church of St James, Paddington, Oscar Wilde, an impecunious poet-playwright, married Constance Lloyd. He quipped that he had told Queen Victoria that ‘in this weather, I asked her to remain at Osborne’.

On 29 May 1922, MP Horatio Bottomley was on this day sentenced to seven years for fraud. His ‘Victory bonds’ had attracted money from thousands of small investors and netted him £150,000

The original indictment of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin (real name John Palmer) is held in the National Archives in Kew, Richmond

The Monument commemorating the Great Fire of London in 1666 is the tallest isolated stone column in the world. It rises to 202ft on Fish Hill, 202ft away from where the fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane

A fragrance known as Madeleine was trialled at St. James Park, Euston, and Piccadilly stations in 2001, to make the Tube more pleasant, stopped within days after complaints from people saying they felt ill

29 May 2002 Paul Boateng became the first black Cabinet minister when he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury on this day

In Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) featured the director making a cameo on the Tube

London’s first indoor bath specifically for swimming was Lemon (now Leman) Street in May 1742 for gentlemen only at 1/- a swim; 2/- hot bath

The earliest known account of sport in London was written in 1174 by William Fitzstepen, due to translation errors the game described is not apparent

The Necropolis Railway Company transported coffins from Waterloo to Brockwood Cemetery customers chose between first, second and third class

One City firm in the 1950s gave new employees a set of instructions including: ‘You will wear a bowler hat to and from the office’

The Queen Mother started the enduring royal wedding tradition of leaving the bride’s bouquet on the Abbey’s Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

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 May 1896, a 300ft high Ferris wheel installed at Earls Court with 40 cars, furnished with easy chairs and settees for first-class passengers, stopped at around 9pm. Most of the passengers spent the night aboard, the passengers were finally released at 7am the next morning, they were recompensed with a £5 note each!

On 22 May 1659 the earliest known cheque was drawn on bankers Clayton & Morris in Cornhill for £10 later auctioned at Sotheby’s for £1,300

William Wallace, commemorated in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, was the first to suffer the ignominious fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered

The oldest church in the City All Hallows by the Tower was founded in 675 the undercroft has Roman pavement dating from the 2nd century

Tube has a unique species of mosquito identified by Queen Mary and Westfield College it feeds off rats and humans is unable to breed with other species

The night before the 1911 census suffragette Emily Davison hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons so she could claim that was her address

Eric Morecambe comic advice to Denis Norden was that there are two words with which you can’t go wrong: “kippers” and “Cockfosters”

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand was known as the home of chess, its serving practise-wheeling food out under silver domes-originates avoiding disturbing a game of chess

The Surbiton Club hired a ‘marker’ for its billiard room with an allowance of 18 gallons on beer a month, the first recruit, unsurprisingly was sacked for drunkenness

In cockney rhyming slang the Underground is known as the Oxo (Cube/ Tube), and there are only two tube station names that contain all five vowels: Mansion House, and South Ealing

By 1883 Fleet Street’s newspapers produced 15 morning dailies, 9 evening papers and 383 weekly publications, of which 50 were local rags

Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, was so taken with the Lambeth Walk that he hired an English girl to teach him the dance in Milan

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 May 1718 James Puckle patented a revolver type of firearm, it was ‘a portable gun or machine that discharges so often and so many bullets, and be so quickly loaded as renders it next to impossible to carry any ship by boarding’. The unusually clear drawings showed an early machine gun. His specifications were that round bullets be used on Christians and square ones on Turks.

On 15 May 1855 three London companies, sent a 91kg box of gold bars from London Bridge station to Paris. On arrival in Paris, the boxes only contained lead

In 1517 ‘Evil May Day’ saw riots against traders from Flanders, Italy and France led by John Lincoln he and other ringleaders were later hanged

Christopher Wren had originally wanted a stone pineapple on the dome of St Paul’s he saw them as a symbol of peace and hospitality

The first baby to be born on the underground was born at Elephant and Castle in 1924, she was named Marie Cordery

Harold Wilson lived at 5 Lord North Street, during his last term serving as Prime Minister spurning the official residence in Downing Street

With over 45 million visitors since it opened in May 2000 Tate Modern has become the most visited modern art gallery in the world

Waterstone’s Piccadilly London’s largest bookshop claims to be Europe’s biggest, 6 floors, over 8 miles of shelves, with over 200,000 titles

Henry VIII played tennis at Hampton Court in silk or velvet drawers (the first shorts) slashed with ‘cuttes’ and edges sewn with gold cord

As Princess Elizabeth, the Queen travelled on the Underground for the first time in May 1939, when she was 13 years old, with her governess Marion Crawford and Princess Margaret

One of the Crossrail tunnelling machines is named Phyllis, in honour of Phyllis Pearsall who invented London’s A to Z map

London’s Camden Square has twice returned Britain’s highest recorded temperatures May 1949 – 29.4C and in June 1957 – 35.6C

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 May 1854, The Times reported of a rebellion at the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall, who boasted among its luminaries the Duke of Wellington, the price of meals would rise to 1/- and be served by an official carverer. The dissenters would win a small victory: dinner rose to 1/- but lunch remained at 6d and would be carved by an amateur.

On 8 May 1984 the Thames Flood Barrier, the northern bank is in Silvertown and the southern is in the New Charlton area

At the end of the 19th century George Brown was given 7 days’ hard labour after treading on a constable’s foot and corn on Poplar High Street

Putney is named after the Anglo-Saxon chief, Putta. It means ‘Putta’s landing’

Nelson’s coffin is made of wood taken from a captured French ship. He used to keep the coffin in his cabin

In 1798 Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and George Tierney MP fought a duel with pistols on Putney Heath, neither were injured

The Oscar winning movie Chariots of Fire was filmed in Hurlingham Park, Fulham

Frith Street, Soho was referred to as Froth Street due to the number of milk bars and cafes located there in the 1950s

India is 5.5 hours ahead of GMT. This means to get the time there you turn your (non-digital) watch upside down. (One for the cricket fans)

Harry Beck designed the Tube map while working as an engineering draughtsman at London Underground’s Signals Office. He was only paid £10.50

Whilst studying law Mahatma Ghandi lived at 20 Baron’s Court Road, West Kensington

In 1790 Upminster Rev. William Derham measured the speed of sound accurately by watching a gun fired 2 miles distant and timing the delay

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.