On 10 March 1906, rumoured to have been funded by a few businessmen wanting to get to and from Lord’s Cricket Ground during Test Matches, the Baker Street and Waterloo Underground Line was opened. ‘Bakerloo’ was first coined by the Evening News. The trains ran between Baker Street and Lambeth North. It is now the 9th busiest line on the network, carrying over 111 million passengers annually.

On 10 March 1886 the First Great Terrier Show precursor to Cruft’s was organised in London by Spratt’s dog biscuit salesman Charles Cruft

Temple Bar on Fleet Street displayed decapitated traitors heads on spikes after being boiled in brine and cumin seeds to deter pecking birds

On Knight’s Road Docklands the world’s largest tin of syrup is affixed to Tate & Lyle’s factory producing the world’s oldest branded product

In his will Dickens stipulated that no monuments be erected to his memory, that’s why London has no statues of one of its greatest writers

On 10 March 1914 suffragette Mary Richardson attacked Velazquez’s painting the Rokeby Venus, hanging in the National Gallery, with an axe

Now charmingly inaccurate, the life-sized models of dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park, constructed in the 1850s were the first in the world

The basement at 27 Endell Street was once the animal depot for West End theatres once two bulls escaped liberating a menagerie on Soho streets

A white strip near BBC White City marks the finish of the world’s first modern marathon in 1908 originally 25 miles extended to 26m 385yards

Early rear view mirrors in taxis couldn’t be adjusted allegedly to prevent drivers from ogling the legs of their lady passengers

South Bank’s Anchor Brewery, once the largest brewery in the world, all that remains is the old brewery tap the Anchor Tavern on Park Street

Burrell & Co on Blasker Walk Docklands once manufactured dyes, red smoke from the chimneys would tint the local pigeons rose-pink

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 3 March 1943 the worst loss of life during World War II in a single event took place at Bethnal Green Station when a mother carrying a child was hurrying down the steps to shelter during an air raid. She fell and an elderly man tripped on top of her. In the panic 178 people died including the baby. News of the disaster was withheld for 36 hours. It was not until 50 years after the disaster that a discreet plaque was erected at the site.

On 3 March 1982 the Queen opened the £153 million Barbican Centre, the largest arts centre in western Europe built on the site of Cripplegate, which was destroyed by Nazi bombers in World War II

In 1809 audiences at the Covent Garden Theatre rioted for 60 nights when the management increased ticket prices

Westminster Catholic Cathedral stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1884. The prison’s foundations were re-used for the cathedral

Writer and Garrick member AA Milne left part of his estate to the club, in 2001 the club sold its interest (incuding Winnie the Pooh) to Disney

In 1972 William Whitelaw (Northern Ireland Secretary) secretly met Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams at 96 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea

It was at The Criterion Long Bar where Dr Watson first met Sherlock Holmes (in Colan Doyle’s – A Study in Scarlet)

Author George Bernard Shaw once spent an evening dancing around Fitzroy Square after watching an Italian dancer at the Alhambra Theatre

The highest temperature recorded at the London Marathon 21.7C degrees on 22 April 2007: coldest 13 years previously in 1994 at 7.6C degrees

Approaching J15 on the M25 it has two six-lane carriageways, the widest stretch of motorway in the country, and yet it still gets jam-packed

Alexander Graham Bell made Britain’s first telephone call from Brown’s Hotel in 1876, the hotel to this day honours Bell’s legacy with the Alexander Graham Bell Room, with its antique telephone

In 1912 workmen found a chest buried on the corner of Cheapside and Friday Street, containing jewellery, gemstones, gold, rings and brooches

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 24 February 1857 Buckingham Palace announced that 62 veterans of the Crimean War would be the first-ever recipients of the Victoria Cross, the highest award of the honours system. Crafted from Russian guns seized at Sebastopol. Awarded for gallantry ‘in the face of the enemy’ the medal has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients. Only 15 medals have been awarded since World War II.

On 24 February 1601 Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was beheaded at the Tower of London for leading a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I

Architect Harry Newton in 1861 suggested building a pair of massive mid-stream islands on the Thames to house the Central Criminal Courts

Next to Barclays on Fleet Street is a half-timbered house over the gateway to the Temple, it survived the Great Fire and dates back to 1600

London is the greenest city of its size in the world, literally – 40 per cent of Greater London is made up of green, open spaces

On 24 February 1920 Nancy Astor, the first woman MP made her maiden speech, becoming the first woman to speak in Parliament

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote I want to hold your hand and Eleanor Rigby at 57 Wimpole Street (McCartney’s attic flat)

On being shown Louis XIV’s embalmed heart the Dean of Westminster eat it claiming “I’ve eaten most things, but never the heart of a king”

Only two MPs have run the London Marathon under 3 hours, best Matthew Parris at 2:32.57 in 1985 and Doug Henderson achieved 2:52.24 in 1989

Only 45 per cent of the Underground is actually in tunnels and the deepest station is Hampstead on the Northern line, which runs down to 58.5 metres

Cockfosters is a very old area, previously known as ‘Cock Fosters’ and is believed to have originally meant the residence of the cock, or chief forester

The $100bn International Space Station controlled from Korolyov, Moscow, and Houston, Texas is operated using Greenwich Mean Time

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 17 February 1987 Tamils from Sri Lanka seeking asylum in Britain protested at Heathrow by removing their clothes as they were being deported, stripping off on the tarmac in freezing weather conditions. Amid a frenzied scuffle with security personnel, they were forcibly placed onto the awaiting aircraft which was bound for Dhaka. They were removed soon afterwards after their loud protests onboard drew complaints.

On 17 February 1932 the Twit Club at 18 Piccadilly advertised for new members: ‘wishing to partake in the delights of the Capital’

Bells are rung at Grays Inn and The Tower of London every evening to warn citizens to extinguish their fires. Ritual dates from Norman times

Brydges Place named after Catherine Brydges daughter of 3rd Baron Chandos at 15 inches at its narrowest point is London’s tightest alley

In an attempt to clean up London, an Act of 1829 means that you could be fined £200 if beat your carpets outside in the street before 8am

Frederick’s Place is an 18th century house where Disraeli once worked, now home to a pop up repertory season

In 1938 the first 1,000 miles of motorway was planned by surveyors using a crayon on a map given away with the saucy men’s magazine Tit-Bits

From the top of the London Eye you can see up to 40 kilometres in all directions (that’s as far as Windsor Castle on a clear day)

A race by ‘running footmen’ from Clerkenwell to St. Albans in 1618 was said to have won the Duke of Buckingham £3,000 in bets

Cabs have to be designed with adequate headroom enough for a gentleman passenger sporting a top hat should you get a job for Ascot

In 1812, the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company became the world’s first gas company, chartered to light the City, Westminster and Southwark

The nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel refers to the act of pawning one’s suit after spending all one’s cash in the pubs of Clerkenwell

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 10 February 1840 despite her assertion that marriage was “a shocking alternative to living with one’s mother”, Queen Victoria Prince Albert in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, they would go on to produce 9 chldren. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her, complaining that her mother’s close proximity promised “torment for many years”.

On 10 February 1971 Frank Zappa was banned from performing at the Albert Hall as a consequence of pf the lyrics in his New Rock Opera Two-Hundred Hotels

By law London cabbies don’t have to wear seat belts while working, but must be belted up while driving on their way home

London has four UNESCO World Heritage sites: The Tower of London, Maritime Greenwich, Westminster Palace and Kew’s Royal Botanical Gardens

In 1850 to deal with London’s sewage problem it was proposed building a system in spokes feeding raw effluent into shops to sell to farmers

Portobello Road takes its name from the 1739 sea battle where the English captured the Portobello naval base in Panama from the Spanish

An Italian dishwasher at the Savoy Hotel was so inspired by the quality of the guests he started the company bearing his name – Guccio Gucci

The Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, built in 1910 and opened in 1912, is the oldest continuously working unaltered movie theatre in England

In 2012 London became the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948

The recorded voice on the No. 17 bus announces it as ‘Her Majesty’s Prison, Pentonville’, as if to soften the blow for those visiting

London in the 1860s when its population was one third that of today’s, 80,000 prostitutes worked making the period “the heyday of the whore”

After King Charles II’s son Duke of Monmouth was executed for treason at The Tower his head was sewn back on so he could sit for a portrait

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.