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.

On 1 May 1912 a statue of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on a stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around, appeared as if by magic on this morning in Kensington Gardens. Sir James Barrie had commissioned the work in secret and had it erected in the wee small hours.

On 1 May 1421 London’s first public lavatory, paid for by Richard Whittington opened, ‘Whittington’s Longhouse’, as it was known, contained two long rows each of sixty-four seats, one side for men, and the other for women

Journalists known as running patterers went to executions to record the executed’s last words, they then printed and sold exaggerated versions

10 Hyde Park Place is London’s smallest house: 3’6″ wide constructed in 1805, it has only ever had one tenant

Constitution Hill’s name is nothing to do with the constitution – it’s because it’s where Charles II took his daily constitutional

When Soviet spy Guy Burgess lived at 38 Chester Square, Lower Belgravia he cunningly decorated his flat in red, white and blue

Hitchcock’s first film The Lodger – 1926 had him making a cameo on the Tube now the Underground’s Film Office handles over 200 requests a month

Gordon’s Wine Bar reputed to be the oldest in London, in the same building that was home to Samuel Pepys in 1680 and is owned by the Gordons family since 1890

The Surbiton Club in 1891 requested members playing billiards partaking of snuff to ‘leave no nasal excreta’ on the baize

The total length of the London Underground network is 250 miles; Tube trains travelled 76.4 million kilometres last year

When the south portico of the British Museum was built the colour of the limestone didn’t match, builders used French limestone not English

There is a 19th century time capsule under Cleopatra’s Needle containing money, a rail guide and portraits of ‘pretty English ladies’

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 April 1993, an IRA truck bomb exploded 23ft from the church of St Ethelburg-the-Virgin within Bishopsgate, totally destroying it. First recorded in 1250, and sustaining only modest damage in the Blitz, the church was rebuilt.

On 24 April 1963 HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent married Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey. The marriage was televised worldwide to an estimated 200 million.

The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol, the prison was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels

Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue

Florence Nightingale’s statue outside St Thomas’s Hospital is a glass-fibre copy as the original was stolen in 1970

Near The Houses of Parliament the Silver Cross public house is a licensed brothel as the privilege granted by Charles I hasn’t been revoked

Both Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling both once lived at 47 Villiers Street, Strand now it is Gordon’s Wine Bar

Harrods installed its first escalator in 1898 and dispensed brandy to gentlemen and Epsom Salts for ladies to help the shock of its movement

London’s oldest sporting-related pavilion is at Syon House, built in 1803 by the Duke of Northumberland so his wife could watch regattas in comfort

The River Westbourne was funnelled above a platform on Sloane Square in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. It remains in place today

The original Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair was founded by Lord Byron’s butler, James Brown recently refurbished and is now owned by Rocco Forte

The largest clock in London is not situated on St Stephens Tower (Big Ben) but on the Shell Mex House which is on the Strand

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.