On 30 June 1992 Margaret Thatcher took her place in the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. In her first debate she spoke out against the government on the Maastricht Treaty. She would be proved right, its adoption gave rise to Ukip and ultimately the Referendum to leave the EU. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister in 1979, and the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century.

On 30 June 1937 the British emergency number 999 was introduced, the first telephone system of its kind in the world

On 30 June 1967 a sky-blue Bentley collected Mick Jagger from the Scrubs and Keith Richards from Brixton after doing time for drugs

On 30 June 1894, under a cloudless sky, Tower Bridge was officially opened by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII)

On Westminster Bridge Road is the entrance to an old station from where passengers took their last journey to Brookwood Cemetery

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

When Ellen Terry visited Whistler’s Chelsea studio Oscar Wilde described seeing her arrive in the full regalia of Lady Macbeth

King James I kept elephants in St James’s Park. They were allowed a gallon of wine a day each to get through the English winter

Dash to Pope’s Road, Brixton in September to watch the Brixton Bolt, see if you can beat Usain’s 100 metre time of 9.58

Jubilee Line trains have been decorated for the Jubilee – appropriate really, as line originally named for 1977 one (hence silver on map)

The Castle pub in Farringdon holds a pawnbrokers licence granted by George IV when he left a heirloom in lieu of a gambling loan

During the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys buried his prized possession, a chunk of parmesan cheese, in his back garden

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 June 1972 the Government floated the pound to shore up its value, assuring the public the pound would return to operating within fixed trading bands in time for Britain to join its European partners in 1973. Britain did join the Common Market, but the economy went from bad to worse. Mr Barber then imposed a 90 day price freeze from 6 November. Prime Minister Edward Heath was finally forced to call a snap election.

On 23 June 1998 the Heathrow Express opened with a railway service from Paddington station to Heathrow Airport

The 1839 Metropolitan Police Act, s.60, ss.3 makes it an offence to dust off your carpet outside in London after 8am punishable by £200 fine

Artillery Lane Spitalfields is named after the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company here before moving to Moorgate

Jimi Hendrix’s last performance was at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, on the day before he died – a jam with Eric Burdon

On 23 June 1951 Russian spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow but only after a leisurely lunch at the RAC Club

Now demolished, Nicholl House on the Woodberry Down Estate, Hackney was the backdrop for the Warsaw Ghetto in the film Schindler’s List

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

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

Roding Valley is the least used station on the London Underground network – it has fewer passengers in a year than Victoria has in a day

18th century Author Dr Johnson tried making pots at the Chelsea China Works but they kept collapsing and he gave up

Prince Edward had collected so many mistresses that a special pew was reserved for them at his coronation: it was known as the ‘Loose Box’

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 16 June 1824, shrugging off the irony in the name of their chosen meeting place, animal welfare campaigners, MPs Richard Martin and William Wilberforce, met with their supporters at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House to establish a ground-breaking new organisation. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) would become the world’s oldest animal welfare charity. In 1840 Queen Victoria gave it a Royal ‘R’.

On 16 June 1667 gold was buried in Cambridge by Samuel Pepy’s wife which had been smuggled out of London fearing the Dutch Navy were on the point of sailing up the Thames to seize London

Mount Pleasant PO is on the site of Coldbath Fields Prison which forbade inmates from speaking and made them spend hours on the treadmill

The pillars in the basement of St. Pancras Station are spaced exactly 3 beer barrels apart designed as Bass beer arrives from Midlands

The playwright Ben Jonson was buried standing up in Westminster Abbey – at his own request, saying he was too poor to take up more space

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

Leicester Square was where Maurice Micklewhite saw poster for The Caine Mutiny and chose Michael Caine as new name

Westfield Stratford, the largest shopping centre in Europe, cost the equivalent of the GDP of the 25 world’s poorest countries to build

Harold Thornton invented table football in 1922 attempting to recreate Spurs with a box of matches, he played it at Bar Kick, Shoreditch High Street

The tunnel between East Finchley and Morden (via Bank) is the longest on the Underground measuring 27.8km (17.25 miles)

The Company of Watermen and Lightermen are not a full Livery Company – excluded because they charged people fleeing the Great Fire in 1666

Rosewood Hotel’s Manor House Suite is the only hotel suite in the world with its own postcode: WC1V 7DZ for the rest of the hotel: WC1V 7EN

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 9 June 1975 in a 4-week experiment, the first live transmission was broadcast of Parliament by BBC Radio. Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn was the first minister to be questioned in Parliament live on air, starting a debate which some listeners said was difficult to follow on radio. The idea of broadcasting the proceedings of Parliament was first suggested in the 1920s, but permission was refused.

On 9 June 1978 a Gutenberg Bible (1 of 21) was sold in London for $2.4 million. It now resides in Stuttgart and worth £30 million

Section 54 of The Metropolitan Police Act 1839 makes it an offence to carry a plank across the pavement in London. Maximum fine £500

Southwark Street laid out in 1862 by Sir Joseph Bazalgette was the first street in London with water and gas pipes in the middle of the road

Famous cook ‘Mrs Beeton’ who published The Book of Household Management, was born at 24 Milk Street, off Cheapside as Isabella Mayson

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

The stage version of Susan Hill’s novel The Woman In Black is the second-longest running West End show after Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap

The Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho is named after the 13 provinces (cantons) of Switzerland (streets around pub were once big watch-making area)

On 9 June 1905 Charlton Athletic Football Club was formed by a group of teenagers on East Street (later known as Eastmoor Street)

On 9 June 1958 The Queen opened revamped Gatwick Airport, arriving by air from Heathrow. The government had decreed that Gatwick should be London’s second airport, it had been closed for the major re-development

Twinings tea shop on the Strand has an old money chest in its in-store museum with the letters ‘T.I.P.’ short for ‘To Improve Promptness’

Some of the TV cables at Buckingham Palace for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were installed by a ferret

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 2 June 1953 the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place at Westminster Abbey, the recipe for the Anointing Oil contains oils of orange, roses, cinnamon, musk and ambergris. Usually a batch is made to last a few Coronations, but in May 1941 a bomb hit the Deanery destroying the phial, so a new batch was made. The Queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary, aged 81 was the first Queen to see a grandchild ascend to the throne.

On 2 June 1938 the children’s zoo opened at London Zoo by American Ambassador Joe Kennedy’s young sons Teddy and Bobby siblings to John Kennedy

Bow Street was the only police station to have white lights outside instead of the traditional blue – they were ordered by Queen Victoria

The golden flames on top of St. Paul’s lean in the direction the wind was blowing on the night of the Great Fire

In 1637 playwright Ben Jonson was buried upright in Westminster Abbey as he couldn’t afford to pay for a larger space

London’s epic Parliament Square peace protestor (no one else can permanently stay there) Brian Haw, born 1949 stood there since 2 June 2001 until his death in 2011

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

Until recently Londoners consumed a prodigious amount of champagne, by volume they equalled the entire amount exported by France to America

In the 18th century at the Cat & Mutton, Broadway Market hosted the Soapy Pig Swinging Contest, drovers lathered a pig’s tail and hurled it

The colourful benches on the Southeastern High Speed platform in St Pancras are the five chopped-up Olympic rings once hanging there in 2012

On 2 June 1953 among the many foreign journalists at the Coronation was Jacqueline Bouvier (later America’s First Lady, Jackie Kennedy), who was working for the Washington Times-Herald at the time

On 2 June 1975 London recorded the first time snow fell in London in June, a county cricket match between Essex and Kent played in Colchester was interrupted by the snow

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.