On 3 January 1804: When Francis Smith joined a group patrolling the Hammersmith Bridge in the wake of sightings of a ghostly figure and saw a figure dressed in white, naturally he assumed it was a deadly apparition. Shooting Thomas Millwood who was dressed in pale clothes after a day’s plastering. Smith was tried for wilful murder, found guilty the hanging sentence was commuted to a year’s hard labour.

On 3 January 1946 William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, an fascist who had broadcast German propaganda from Germany to Britain during WWII was hanged at Wandsworth

On 3 January 1911 The Siege of Sidney Street, popularly known as the ‘Battle of Stepney’ took place in the East End

No. 1 the Strand was the very first house in London to be numbered, although Apsley House at Hyde Park is now called No. 1 London

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

Carter Lane was once a main thoroughfare through the City and where at the Hart’s Horn Tavern Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators met

When the allegorical novella Animal Farm was published in 1945 George Orwell was living at 27b Cannonbury Square, Islington

When the Can Can was performed at the Alhambra Leicester Square in 1870 the theatre’s dancing licence was suspended

Shergar won the 1981 Derby was so far ahead the short-sighted jockey in second place didn’t see him and thought that he had won the race

From 14th to the 18th century the area occupied by Trafalgar Square was the courtyard of the Great Mews stabling serving Whitehall Palace

As a boy Charles Dickens worked in a boot polish or blacking factory on Villiers Street the Strand. Embankment station now occupies the site

The streets named Savoy take their name from the Savoy Palace where in 1381 thirty-two men trapped in the cellar drank themselves to death

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 December 1813 smog descended upon London, lasting until 3 January 1814, it was said to have spread as far as the North Downs. The worst area affected was the East End where the density of factories and homes burning coal was greater than anywhere else in the Capital. Here people claimed not to be able to see from one side of the street to the opposite pavement. It caused the Prince Regent to turn back from a trip to Hatfield.

On 27 December 1871 the world’s first cat show was held at Crystal Palace, a staggering 200,000 people attended

In 1841 the Metropolitan Police reported there were 9,409 prostitutes and 3,325 brothels known to the police across the 17 police districts

St Pancras station’s bricks are that famous red colour because they’re made from Nottinghamshire clay supplied by the Nottingham Patent Brick Co. Ltd.

St. James’s Palace and its park were formerly the site of a leper hospital for women dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance

Trafalgar Square was to have been called ‘King William the Fourth’s Square’ architect and landowner George Ledwell Taylor suggested its name

Charles I’s statute in Trafalgar Square stands on the site of the original Charing Cross marking where all distances from London start

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

Running between Old Street and City Road Bath Street recalls the location of London’s first purpose built outdoor facility the Peerless Pool

London has fewer bridges spanning its principal river than Paris but has 23 underwater tunnels more than any other city in the world

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

Bank is the only one-syllable station name and Knightsbridge is the only London street name with six consecutive consonants

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 December 1688, according to Samuel Pepys’ diary, a very violent frost began which lasted until 6 February. Its extremity was so great that the pools were frozen at least 18in thick. The Thames was also so frozen that a great street from Temple to Southwark was built with shops and all manner of things were sold. There was also bull-baiting and a great many shows and tricks to be seen. London would see many more freezes.

On 20 December 1606 Virginia Company settlers left London to establish Jamestown Virginia, on board were 105 men, including 40 soldiers

Bricks from the world’s first modern prison, Millbank Penitentiary, demolished in 1892 were used to build Millbank Estate, Westminster

London’s City Hall at Tower Bridge is nicknamed ‘The Testacle’ and the Swiss Re: Building in the City is known as ‘The Erotic Gherkin’

In 1829, with London running out of space to bury its dead, architect Thomas Wilson proposed building a 94-storey pyramid on Primrose Hill, interning 5 million corpses

Playwright Richard Sheridan first described The Bank of England as “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” in a 1797 Commons speech

Charles Dickens based the haunted doorknocker seen by Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol on one he had seen in Craven Street

In December 1662 ice skating was first seen in St. James’s Park when exiled cavaliers from Holland donned their skates on the frozen lake

Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Golf Club is the closest 18-hole golf course to the City of London at 5 miles distant

Savoy Place leading to The Savoy Hotel is the only 2-way street in England that you must by law drive on the right hand side of the road

There is a gasholder in Southall with the letters ‘LH’ and a large arrow painted on it to guide pilots towards Heathrow airport

For £750,000 you can buy the remains of the Grade II Baltic Exchange damaged by the IRA and now stored in a Kent barn, the Gherkin replaced it

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 December 1995, riots broke out again in Brixton, hundreds of youths attacked police, ransacked shops, and burnt cars after the death of a black man in police custody. About 50 police officers in riot gear formed a line across Brixton’s main road to stifle pockets of trouble and prevent anyone entering the area. The violence continued for 5 hours, 22 people were arrested and charged with theft and criminal damage, 3 police officers hurt.

On 13 December 1867 Clerkenwell Prison was bombed by members of the Fenians, the blast killed bystanders in Corporation Row, the perpetrators were later executed

Britain’s first ubiquitous use of speed bumps preventing exceeding the speed limit, were installed on Linver Road and Alderville Road, Fulham in 1984

Taking just 5 months to build Crystal Palace was in 1850 the biggest building on Earth, vast enough to accommodate four St Paul’s Cathedrals

In December 1952 smog killed over 12,000 windless weather and cold led to 100,000 admitted to hospital with respiratory illnesses

St. Mary Axe recalls a legend about a princess who travelled abroad with her 11,000 handmaidens; all were killed by Attila using 3 axes

The ‘local palais’ lyrics in the Kinks’ Come Dancing was the Athenaeum, Fortis Green Road replaced by a Sainsbury’s store in 1966

Cultivated for over 900 years College Garden Westminster Abbey is the oldest garden in England, its surrounding walls are dated 14th Century

The spiritual home of Sunday football at their peak in the 1960s, Hackney Marshes had 5 areas offering 120 pitches, the largest in the world

The deepest car park is under Bloomsbury Square 60ft deep and 7 storeys 450 car capacity built in 1960 and ruined Repton’s landscaping above

The Bank of England issued its first banknotes in 1725 with a £100 note an amount that could rent a furnished house in Pall Mall for 5 years

Half a million years ago the Thames flowed from the Midlands through Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, East Anglia entering the sea at Ipswich

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 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.