On 6 December 1975, three armed IRA men on the run from police burst into a flat in in Balcombe Street taking two people hostage. Officers sealed off the corner of Dorset Square and Balcombe Street, in Marylebone, after a car chase through the West End during which shots were fired. The gunmen were members of an IRA hit squad which has been behind a number of attacks including the shooting dead TV presenter Ross McWhirter.

On 6 December 1994 some £1bn of oil was discovered beneath Windsor Castle, the Queen gave permission for drilling to commence, but overruled

In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St Dunstan & All Saints, Stepney High Street

The Strand (technically just “Strand” – look at the signs) was originally the north shore of the much-wider Thames – “strand” means “bank”

Dame Cicely Saunders founded St. Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, the world’s first hospice, eventually she died there herself in 2005

Pains Fireworks, still making fireworks, founded in the 15thC in the East End, sold the light gunpowder used in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605

The ArcelorMittal Orbit is the UK’s tallest sculpture, at 684ft, the structure incorporates the world’s tallest and longest tunnel slide

The Grand United Lodge of England on Great Queen Street, founded in 1717 is the oldest Masonic Grand Lodge in the world

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

Below the control box on a puffin crossing is a little ridged bobbin which swivels indicating to the visually impaired it’s safe to cross

A ‘Seven Dials Raker’ was a Victorian prostitute who lived in the vicinity of Seven Dials but plied her trade elsewhere in London

The oldest living thing in London is the 2,000-year-old Totteridge Yew in St. Andrew’s churchyard, which stands on the ‘Tott Ridge’

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 November 1814, The Times, known as the London Times was printed by steam, instead of manual power, the first newspaper in the world to be produced by this method. Its owner John Walter, is said to have surprised a room full of printers who were preparing hand presses for the production of that day’s paper. He showed them an already completed copy of the paper and announced, “The Times is already printed – by steam”.

On 29 November 1855, the Nightingale Fund was inaugurated at Willis’s Rooms, King Street, St. James’s Square, establishing the formal training of nurses and auxiliary staff

It was at Francis Bacon’s studio at Narrow Street, Limehouse that he met lover George Dyer as Dyer attempted to burgle the place

The dome of the O₂ weighs less than the air contained underneath it; there’s only one curved piece of glass in the Gherkin – the one right at the top

In 1862, Dr Thomas Orton, one of London’s most senior physicians, established four sibling’s deaths in Limehouse were caused by vivid green wallpaper whose constituent was arsenic

Under Paddington Green is a disused Cold War command centre its entrance covered by a bush, nearby are the top-security jail cells for terrorist suspects inside London’s Paddington Green Police Station

A fight with a fashion designer at a party is said to have inspired Ray Davis to write The Kinks hit Dedicated Follower of Fashion

During World War II the south moat at the Tower of London was used by the Yeoman Warders as allotments to grow vegetables

The neon sign on Hornsey Road Baths is the sole survivor of 12 similar signs commissioned at various London baths in the 1930s

The eastern extension of the Jubilee line is the only Underground line to feature glass screens to deter ’jumpers’

Constructed in 1850 Crystal Palace had nearly 1 million square feet of glass, about a third of all the glass produced in England that year

The Clapham South wartime bomb shelter was later used to house the first ever Jamaican immigrants who arrived in 1948 on the Empire Windrush

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 November 1990 at 9.30 in the morning, Downing Street issued a statement after Mrs. Thatcher had informed her Cabinet and the Queen of her intention to stand down as Prime Minister, after her Cabinet refused to back her in the second round of leadership elections. She did not continue to fight Michael Heseltine for the Conservative Party leadership after a string of serious disputes over Britain’s involvement in the Europe.

On 22 November 1774 General Robert Clive known as ‘Clive of India’, died at his Berkeley Square house from ‘an excessively large dose of opium’.

In 1597 Ben Jonson was charged with ‘Leude and mutynous behavior’ and jailed in Marshalsea Prison for co-writing the play The Isle of Dogs

The Fire of London destroyed: 87 churches; Guildhall Royal Exchange; Customs House; 52 company halls; 4 prisons; 3 City gates; 4 bridges; and 13,000 houses

William Cowle died in the upstairs room of the Carlisle Arms, Soho in 1893, by placing a billiard ball in his mouth for a bet

The Ayrton Light atop Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower, popularly known as Big Ben, shines to show that the House is sitting

The ships surmounting flagpoles on The Mall depict Nelson’s fleet who defeated the French at The Battle of Trafalgar

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

On 22 November 2009 Jermain Defoe gained the record for the most goals (5) in one half of a Premiership game when Spurs beat Wigan 9-0

Clapham Junction Station is the busiest terminal in Britain once having 2,500 trains per day passing through

The majority of workers at Mortons Jam factory were of Scottish origin, this is the origin of Millwall’s famous blue & white colours

The definition of a Londoner: one who has never been to Madame Tussaud’s; Harrods once claimed to be able to supply elephants

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 November 1977, Princess Anne gave birth to Peter Mark Andrew Phillips at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. The child was the first royal baby to be born a commoner for more than 500 years. Unlike other commoner’s births the royal gynaecologist, George Pinker, also attended the birth. Fortunately for the princess, the tradition requiring a government minister to witness royal births had ended.

On 15 November 1712 the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun duelled in Hyde Park, Mohun’s second killed Hamilton and Mohun died later from his injuries

In 1415 following the Battle of Agincourt the Duke of Orleans, prisoner in the Tower of London, sent his wife the first ever valentine card

Blackfriars Bridge has several pulpits along its flank homage to Blackfriars Monastery which stood here until it was dissolved by Henry VIII

Domestic servants with visible smallpox scars were preferred to those unmarked, proof that they would not bring smallpox into the household

Theobalds Road was once a track that led to the Stuart kings’ hunting grounds at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire

The dinner party attended by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in the film Notting Hill was held at 91 Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill

Tradition has it that Pimlico is named after Ben Pimlico, a 17th Century Hoxton brewer who supplied London with a popular Nut Brown ale

The world’s oldest cricket ball dates from 1820, was swatted over a 3 day period during William Ward’s record innings of 278 at Lord’s its present home

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

Arsenal were founded as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, but were renamed Royal Arsenal shortly afterwards

The world’s first weather forecast was issued from Greenwich Royal Observatory in 1848 by James Glaisher

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 November 1974, Lord Lucan vanished without trace. The previous evening his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of his children’s home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street. As the police began their murder investigation, Lucan telephoned his mother, asking her to collect the children, and then drove a borrowed Ford Corsair to a friend’s house in Uckfield then vanished.

On 8 November 1429 the Duke of Norfolk crashed his barge into London Bridge, but survived by climbing a rope onto the bridge

On 8 November 2002 an arsonist burned down the Lock Keeper’s Cottage, Old Ford Lock, original location of Channel 4’s Big Breakfast

In Star Yard Holborn stands a late Victorian gents’ ‘pissoir’. Another one in is to be found in Twickenham, a similar example is in Regency Street

In 19th century London, middle class men lived to 45, workmen and labourers life spanned half that time and children were lucky to survive until five

It was at the Merchant Taylor’s Hall, in 1607 in honour of King James I, that the National Anthem was first sung

The West End’s oldest theatre, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, is also reported to be haunted by the Victorian music hall star and panto dame Dan Leno, whose spirit is said to exude the scent of lavender oil

You are allowed to use a camera in a London Royal Park, but not a tripod, nothing is mentioned about the use of a monopod

Richmond Golf Club’s 1940 rules: Known unexploded bombs are marked by red flags at a not guaranteed safe distance, a player whose stroke is affected by a explosion may play another ball from the same place

There are thirty-three bridges of all types across the tidal Thames up to Teddington Lock, a distance of just under 99 miles

Filming on location in the Underground costs £500 per hour (plus VAT) unless you have a crew of less than five

At 440 feet the village of North End on the edge of Hampstead Heath is the highest inhabited point in London

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.