On 20 March 1819 Burlington Arcade was opened, not for the convenience of the public, but to stop public access. Annoyed by the constant litter being dropped alongside his house, Lord Burlington was inconvenienced by discarded oyster shells (a cheap snack in the eighteenth century) and dead cats being infrequently thrown over his garden wall. Percy the Poltergeist, is said to have been in residence since 1953, but no dead cats.

On 20 March 1974 Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips escaped an apparent kidnap in Pall Mall in which shots were fired

On 20 March 1966 the £30,000 solid gold Jules Rimet Trophy (World Cup) was stolen while on exhibition at Central Hall in Westminster

In 1925 the Marlborough Street end of Liberty was rebuilt in Tudor style using wood from two ships HMS HIndustan and HMS Impregnable

The Embankment hides a smelly secret – Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system which prevents sewage flowing into the Thames

In 1642 Charles I tried to arrest 5 MPs who criticised him. Since then no monarch has been allowed inside the House of Commons

At his home in Kensington Square, John Stuart Mill left his friend Thomas Carlyle’s manuscript lying around and his maid burned it

When Peter the Great stayed in the Deptford home of John Evelyn in 1698 he trashed his garden and drank all his wine

Now given the postcode of E20 the 2012 Olympic Park will share its address with Walford the London area in the fictional BBC soap Eastenders

Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate bar is by far the biggest seller in its dispensing machines at tube stations, the worst seller isn’t disclosed

During a restoration project in the 1920s, tennis balls were found in the rafters of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament

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 13 March 1967 hundreds of students at the London School of Economics took part in a sit-in over disciplinary action taken against two union officials, following their part in a demonstration on 31 January against the appointment of the LSE’s next director, Dr Walter Adams, in which a college porter died of a heart attack during the demonstrations. Students opposed the appointment as he had links with Ian Smith’s racist regime.

On 13 March 1961 five members of Portland Spy Ring went on trial at the Old Bailey charged with plotting to pass plans of HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, they were all found guilty

The London Hackney Carriage Act makes it illegal to hail a cab whilst the vehicle is moving, thankfully the police don’t enforce the law

London’s first Russian Orthodox Cathedral was consecrated in 2000 look down on its blue onion dome from Chiswick Flyover’s eastbound lane

The corpse of Henry V’s wife Catherine de Valois was dug up and put on display for 200 years, Samuel Pepys records kissing the lips for a bet

In 1940 Winston Churchill met at St. Ermin’s Hotel promising to ‘Set Europe Ablaze’ the genesis of the SOE which ultimately became the SAS

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

Kaspar the Cat was a large feline figure used at the Savoy Hotel if a table setting totalled 13 increasing it beyond that unlucky number

Ping-pong bar Bounce at 121 Holborn is on the site where John Jacques created and patented the game in 1901

The taximeter invented in 1891 giving the cab its alternative name wasn’t used in London until 1907 in a attempt to prevent rows about fares

In the Royal Mews the carriages are the responsibility of the Master of the Horse a position created by Edward III after the Siege of Calais

The world’s first ATM was installed outside Barclays Bank, Enfield in 1967 it was opened by actor/comedian Reg Varney who withdrew £10

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 6 March 1997 Picasso’s Tête de Femme worth £700,000 was stolen from the Lefevre Gallery in Mayfair, by a man brandishing a sawn-off shotgun. The raid was over in 35 seconds, the thief jumped into a taxi which took him to, of all places, Halford’s in Battersea at which point he made a phone call before travelling on to Wimbledon and evading capture. To the dismay of art lovers, the painting was later recovered.

On 6 March 1961 the image of the capital’s taxi cab as a black Austin FX3 changed as the capital’s first mini cab by Carline Cabs arrived

Among the final few people ever to be imprisoned in the Tower of London were the Kray twins. (Recaptured after deserting from the Army)

Percy Circus, WC1 was named after writer Sydney Smith’s brother Robert Percy Smith who was a director of the New River Company

Charles Dickens nearly became an actor but missed the audition at the Covent Garden theatre due because he had flu

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the USA, was married in All Hallows by the Tower in 1797, the oldest church in the City of London was founded in 675AD

In 1747 William Hogarth painted The Stage Coach at the former Angel Inn, 1 Islington High Street, rebuilt and occupied by Co-op Bank

The founder of Soho restaurant Quo Vadis chose the name because he didn’t know whether it would succeed – it means ‘where are you going?’

As the boat race is taking place Spitalfields City Farm raise funds for animal feed by racing 3 goats: ‘Oxford’ and ‘& Cambridge’

Next time you can’t find a bus, try Waterloo Bridge, there, one crosses the Thames every 16 seconds, but very slowly

Edward Garton had an incentive to change the name of his Gartons sauce everyone spelt it backwards and you get snot rag – so HP Sauce it was

On 6 March 1998, the Meteorological Office in Bracknell was rung by a pensioner from Shirley distressed at seeing her garden covered in frogs

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 27 February 1907 the Old Bailey, at a cost of £392,277 was finally opened by King Edward VII. On top of the 67ft high dome a 12ft gold leaf statue was placed of a ‘lady of justice’ holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other; she is not, as is conventional with such figures, blindfolded. Over the main entrance to the building figures were placed representing fortitude, the recording angel, and truth.

On 27 February 1557 the first Russian Embassy opened in London, within a year a trade mission brought sable skins opening up trade routes between England and Russia

The Neckinger River and the street get their name from ‘devil’s neckinger’ London slang for a handkerchief or the hangman’s noose

Marble Arch was built as the entrance to Buckingham Palace until it was realised that the arch was too narrow for Queen Victoria’s carriage

At Holy Sepulchre Church lies buried Captain John Smith who was rescued by Pocahontas when he was Governor Virginia, Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend

On 27 February 1975 PC Stephen Tibble, a policeman for only 6 months, was shot in Baron’s Court, hours later London’s first bomb factory was found

The gargoyles on the façade of The Natural History Museum depict the extent of palaeontological knowledge at the time of its construct

Chelsea buns originate from the Bun House which stood on the junction Lower Sloane Street/Pimlico Road and patronised by royalty until 1839

Millwall (Rovers) were formed in the summer of 1885 by workers at Morton’s Jam Factory on the Isle of Dogs

The Austin FX-4 taxi was introduced in 1958 and remained in production until 1996, only the Mini surpasses this record for a British vehicle

The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used in 1866 when the private banking house of Overend, Gurney and Co collapsed causing panic in the City

No throughfare is called a road in the City. Road is a corruption of the word ride and the streets of the City were too narrow for carriages

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 20 February 1702 William of Orange was riding Sorrel, in Hampton Court Park, the horse stumbled on a molehill and fell throwing the King who broke his collarbone, with fatal consequences. This incident was to give rise to a new Jacobite toast, ‘To the little gentleman in black velvet’. An equestrian statue of William III in St. James’s Square has His Majesty upon Sorrel with the little molehill near the horse’s hooves.

On 20 February 1547 the Coronation of Edward VI took place at Westminster Abbey, he was just nine years old

On 20 February 1965 the crimson backed hardwood ‘Ghost Chair’ at Brompton Oratory Roman Catholic Church was stolen, it would resurface years later in a ruined South American church

César Ritz founded the Carlton Hotel now replaced by New Zealand House in the Haymarket after being sacked from the Savoy

One advantage of motor vehicles replacing the horse was a decrease in typhoid as the great piles of dung disappeared from London’s streets

Winston Churchill, exiled leaders Charles de Gaulle and Jan Masaryk used the Savoy Hotel and Grill as their London home during World War II

Theatre Royal Drury Lane London’s oldest theatre originally a playhouse on the site in 1662 Charles II made them part of the Royal Household

The National Army Museum has the bloodied saw used to remove the Marquess of Anglesey’s leg after being shattered by cannon fire at Waterloo

Wimbledon is now the only Grand Slam tournament still played on natural grass, maintained by 16 ground staff plus 12 during Championships

London’s first mechanically driven taxi was battery powered but slower than their horse-drawn predecessors as a result went bust in 5 years

Willliam Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’ mentioned in his poem Jerusalem were the Albion Mills near his Lambeth home

When RAC Club’s President, the Duke of Sutherland, had one of his four Rolls-Royces outside the Club its engine was kept running for immediate departure

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.