On 15 March 1909 American retailer, H. Gordon Selfridge opened his new store in the unfashionable west-end of Oxford Street. His newly built department store boasted over half-a-million square feet of retail space. Gordon Selfridge coined two mottos ‘Only – shopping days until Christmas’ and ‘Business as usual’. He would later unsuccessfully attempt to get Bond Street Underground Station renamed Selfridge’s.

On 15 March 1824 the first piles driven in to River Thames of coffer dams for construction of Sir John Rennie’s new London Bridge

Suicides (a crime) used to be buried at crossroads – the last one in London (1823) was outside the garden wall of Buckingham Palace (then House)

The Monument a memorial to the Great Fire, the 202ft pillar designed by Wren is a telescope watch the cam on http://www.themonumentview.net/

Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham is a direct descendant of John Bellingham the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812

When Julian Assange was holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy those visiting included Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga, Eric Cantona and Nigel Farage

On 15 March 1932 Henry Hall and his dance orchestra performed the first musical programme from the new Broadcasting House in Langham Place

The short Holywell Street was the centre for the Victorian gay porn trade, with an estimated 57 pornography shops in as many yards

On Shrove Tuesday charity teams race up and down Dray Walk, Spitalfields flipping pancakes. The winning team receives an engraved frying pan

Edward Johnston designed the typeface for the London Underground in 1916. The design he came up with is still in use today, named Johnson

Following Prince Philip’s declaration that it was unmanly to do so royal footmen at Buckingham Palace no longer powder their hair

M25: 33 junctions; 6 counties; 117 miles, driving at 70 mph without braking it takes 1 hour 40 minutes to complete one lap of the motorway

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 March 1941, during a German air raid, two bombs hurtled down a ventilation shaft straight onto the dance floor soon after the start of a performance at the Café de Paris in Coventry Street, the venue was described as a ‘sumptuous, subterranean haunt of debs and celebs. A bomb exploded directly in front of band leader Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson, 33 members of staff, band members and revellers were killed and at least 100 injured.

On 8 March 1934, the London County Council was taken over by Labour, where it remained the majority party until its abolishment in 1965

Wallace Walk traces a 4-mile route that William Wallace of Braveheart fame took from his trial at Westminster to his execution in Smithfield

Oliver Cromwell’s statute outside Westminster Hall depicts him standing without a horse but wearing his spurs upside down

The Monument was erected in memory of The Great Fire of London which 5 people died, 6 people have since fallen to their deaths from the top

Within 2 years of the start of World War II 26 per cent of London’s pets were destroyed, a quarter of a mile queue formed outside a Wood Green vets

Such was its worldwide renown that in the early days of the Savoy Hotel the house orchestra was led by Johann Strauss

Coram’s Fields the remnant of the Children’s Foundling Hospital only allows adults into its grounds if they are accompanied by a child

On Shrove Tuesday charity teams race up and down Dray Walk, Spitalfields flipping pancakes. The winning team receives an engraved frying pan

Queensway Station has its main entrance in Bayswater Road and Bayswater Station has its entrance in Queensway

In 1941 a new 3-mile stretch of the Central Line tunnel – Gants Hill to Leytonstone was given to Plessey for use as an underground factory

Cabbies are permitted to ask a police constable to shield them with his (or her) cape when urinating against the vehicle in a seemly fashion

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 March 1966 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callaghan announced in Parliament the “historic and momentous” decision to change to decimal coinage. The switch to be implemented in February 1971 and the £1 retained being divided into units called either ‘cents’ or ‘new pennies’. The changeover was estimated to cost £120 million. Companies obliged to invest in new equipment would not be compensated.

On 1 March 1711 the first edition of the Spectator founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele was published

On 1 March 1950 nuclear scientist, Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs, was jailed for 14 years at the Old Bailey for spying for the Soviet Union

The Monument stands on the site of St Margaret’s, the first church to burn down during the Great Fire of 1666, its height is exactly the distance it stands from the start of the fire

Clerkenwell is named after the ‘Clerk’s Well’ that supplied Charterhouse. It can be seen through the window of Well Court, Farringdon Lane

Suffragette Emily Davison died beneath the King’s horse at Epsom, recent research suggests she was attaching a sash, not martyring herself

On 1 March 1968 the first performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Old Assembly Hall, Colet Court was shown

Britain’s first purpose-built department store, Bon Marché, was built in Brixton in 1877 on the proceeds of racehorse winnings

In March1905 in The Butcher’s Hook pub Gus Mears & co held a meeting that decided a name for his newly formed football club – Chelsea FC

M25 J8: Reigate Hill Interchange has the longest motorway slip road in the country climbing up Reigate Hill for 1.5 miles to a roundabout

As late as the 1940s, waiters at the Savoy Hotel were forbidden from wearing watches, rings, spectacles or false teeth

St. Ethelburga’s font is inscribed with the longest known Greek palindrome: NI?ON ANOMHMTA MH MONAN O?IN ‘Cleanse my sins, not just my face’

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 23 February 1820 at 7.30 pm in Cato Street the Bow Street Runners apprehended the Cato Street Conspirators who had planned to murder all the British cabinet and the Prime Minister. The police had an informer and the plotters fell into a police trap, 13 were arrested, while one policeman was killed. Five conspirators were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, later the sentence was commuted to being hanged and decapitated.

On 23 February 1633 Diarist and Chief Secretary to the Admiralty Samuel Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street

Legendary Miss Marple actress Dame Margaret Rutherford lived at 4 Berkeley Place, Wimbledon from 1895 to 1920

Big Ben (ie the Clock Tower) tilted by over an inch when Westminster Tube station was excavated for extension of Jubilee Line in 1990s

Britain’s first fatal car crash took place on Grove Hill, Harrow.Today a plaque on the spot warns drivers to take heed!

10 Downing Street’s famous black door was, in the first decade of the 20th century, painted green, now there is more than enabling regular painting

The statue of Eros was meant to be ‘burying’ the ‘shaft’ of his arrow in Shaftesbury Avenue – but they put him up facing the wrong way

During the 1749 premiere of Handel’s Fireworks Music in Green Park, a pavilion erected for the event burned down

Fred Perry’s racket bearing the personalised monogram ‘F.J.P, from the 1934 Wimbledon Championships sold at Christie’s in June 1997 for £23,000

London’s oldest underground line was opened in 1863 between Farringdon and Paddington and is still in use today

From 1787 to 1852 Hackney was home to Loddiges’ Nursery, famous for tropical orchids, hothouses and an arboretum

The legally required turning circle of a London taxi is 25 feet. Cab owners include Prince Philip, Stephen Fry and Bez of the Happy Mondays

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.