On 16 December 1937 Noel Coward’s Me and My Girl starring Lupino Lane premiered at the Victoria Palace Theatre. It gained popularity when the BBC broadcast it live on radio on 13 January 1938, it was first live broadcast of a performance by the BBC, and listeners could sing along from the theatre featuring what was to become the wartime classic The Lambeth Walk. It ran for 1,646 performances despite being bombed out of two theatres.

On 16 December 1977 the Underground extension to Heathrow was opened by The Queen, making London the world’s first capital with a direct rail link to its airport

The 17th century Seven Dials monument was removed as the thieves and prostitutes used to hang around it. The current replica dates to 1989

There were eight deep-level shelters built under the London Underground in the Second World War. One of them in Stockwell is decorated as a war memorial

Livingstone’s heart was buried under a tree where he died, now the site of the Livingstone Memorial, his remains buried at Westminster Abbey

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

Author A. A. Milne found the original Winnie-the-Pooh for his son Christopher Robin in the Toy Department of Harrod’s on Christmas Eve

Harrod’s opened in 1849 as a single room grocery shop, a fire gutted the building in 1883 and in 1898 installed the world’s first escalator

London has 108 golf courses, to play every hole would require walking just over 300 miles (assuming you kept out of the rough) and crossing a covered reservoir in Honor Oak

During the Second World War, part of the Piccadilly line (Holborn – Aldwych branch), was closed and British Museum treasures were stored in the empty spaces

Billingsgate Market (old) was originally opened in 1016 selling food and wine, with fish becoming the sole trade later

The dog listening to the gramophone in the HMV logo has a road named after him, near his burial site in Kingston on Thames: Nipper Alley

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 December 1914 Lt. Harry Colebourne of the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps purchased a black bear from a hunter, who had shot the mother, for $20 in Ontario. He named it Winnie short for Winnipeg. Incredibly he brought the bear to England when it became the regiment’s unofficial mascot, leaving the bear to the London Zoo. A. A. MIlne and his son Christopher Robin saw the creature and thus Winnie the Pooh was born.

On 9 December 1868 one of Britain’s most famous politicians became Prime Minister for the first time. William Ewart Gladstone would become Prime Minister three more times

Workhouse Rule 15: No person of either sex be allowed to smoke in bed or in any room of the house upon pain of being put in the dungeon 6 hours

London’s biggest private home is Witanhurst, on Highgate West Hill: 65 rooms, including 25 bedrooms, a gym and a library, and plans underground cinema, beauty parlour and car park

The Bethlehem Royal Hospital is world’s oldest institution specialising in mental health was founded in 1247 near Bishopsgate, in 1800 the hospital moved to Lambeth, it now houses the Imperial War Museum

Queen Victoria was offended when a 14-storey tower blocked her view of Houses of Parliament it led to a Bill capping all buildings to 80ft

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, a 115-metre-high (377 ft) sculpture and observation tower in the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, is Britain’s largest piece of public art

London’s first sandwich bar, Sandy’s, opened in Oxendon Street in 1933, the greater informality of eating soon spread throughout the capital as the culture of fast-food was established

On 9 December 2000 the fastest ever goal in the Premiership was scored after 9.9 seconds by Ledley King for Spurs v Bradford City

Harry Beck’s map was considered too big a departure from the norm, but the public liked it and it became official in 1933

Founded in London in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company is the world’s oldest chartered company and Founded in 1694, the Bank of England was the first privately owned national bank in any country

During he 1920s and 1930s Aberdeen based shepherd George Donald would bring his flock down to Hyde Park grazing his sheep to keep grass level

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 December 1697 after nearly three decades spent rebuilding since The Great Fire of London the first service was held in Sir Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. The saying to be ‘a St. Paul’s workman’ denoted a lazy tradesman principally as the cathedral had taken so long to be re-built. It was not finished until 1710 by which time Wren would have to be hoisted up to the dome in a bucket as age prevented him from climbing.

On 2 December 1887 A Study in Scarlet was first published the first time Sherlock Holmes was featured solving a crime and the first ‘serial’ detective novel

On 2 December 2009 ‘Lord’ Edward Davenport of Portland Place was jailed for 7 years, the self-styled aristocrat offered bogus loans for cash-strapped investors, but never paid-out

The City of London is the historical core of the English capital. It roughly matches the boundaries the Roman city of Londinium and of medieval London

8 people drowned and 15 buildings were destroyed in the Great London Beer Flood of 1814, a brewery vat burst just behind what is now New Oxford Street and 30,000 gallons of beer flooded the area

As early as 1841 The House of Commons gained its first Asian member when David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre became an MP

The rusty bollards on Bellenden Road were sculpted by Antony Gormley whose studio is nearby, 4 shapes oval, snowman, peg and err . . . penis

Soho was once home to a shop called ‘Anything Left Handed’ selling – you’ve guessed it – household products specifically designed for left-handed people, it is now closed

The 1908 London Olympics 400m final American John Carpenter blocked Wyndham Halswelle, disqualified the other American finalists then refused to re-race, Halswelle jogged alone round the track taking gold

Established in 1890, the City and South London Railway was the first deep-level underground railway in the world, also the first major railway to use electric traction, it became the Northern Line

Clerkenwell was famous for its gin distilleries – Stone’s, Tanqueray’s & Gordon’s – setting up here, they were probably attracted to the region as thirsty cattle drovers passed by en route to Smithfield

Prince Albert did not introduce the first Christmas tree into London, the first was Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, wanting to recreate the German Christmases of her childhood

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 25 November 1952 at the Ambassador Theatre opened a play which would break all records. Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap ran at this theatre until 1974 transferring to St. Martin’s where it is still performed nightly clocking up over 26,000 performances. The clock on the mantelpiece in the main hall is the only remaining original prop. More than 400 actors have appeared, Richard Attenborough was the original DS Trotter.

On 25 November 1929 architect Ewan Barr mock Tudor Duchess Theatre opened, it became a cinema three years later

Law discouraging imported spirits resulted in 1 in 7 homes in East London distilling gin and weekly consumption rising to 8 pints per person

Park Lane Hilton the first tall building constructed after the war planning objections were quashed when Hilton threatened to move to Paris

Colonel Pierpoint designed the world’s first traffic island in St James’s Street he tripped over while showing his friends and killed by a passing cab

Female MPs were banned from wearing trousers in the House of Commons. Speaker Horace King changed that even though he said he liked to see a ‘nicely-turned ankle’

War of the Worlds author HG Wells and comedian Peter Cook lived at 17 Church Row, Hampstead, although not at the same time

Peach Melba created by the Savoy for soprano Nellie Melba used her favourite ingredients to reduce the cold of ice cream on her vocal cords

If you added up the number of seats available at all of London’s sporting venues you get a total of 780,000 a figure no city in the world can match

The term Hackney Carriage is not connected to East London’s Olympic Park but comes from the French word haquenée meaning an ambling nag

Fortnum and Mason’s head of bakery is known as ‘Groom of the Pastry’ a tradition dating back two centuries

The Lost Property Office has received: three dead bats in a box; two human skulls; an artificial leg; breast implants and a whole stuffed gorilla

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 18 November 1910 the day was known as Black Friday when 300 suffragettes clashed with police at a rally in Hyde Park protesting against Prime Minister Asquith’s refusal to allow debate of the Conciliation Bill granting women universal suffrage, the first documented use of force against women, 2 died and 200 arrested. After Black Friday, Asquith promised the Liberals would include a Suffrage Bill if elected.

On 18 November 1987 a discarded cigarette ignited debris beneath an escalator at King’s Cross Station thirty-one would die in the conflagration

The first man to wear a top hat in public caused so much hysteria and commotion in St James’ that he was arrested for disturbing the peace

London’s thoroughfares once had Thieving Lane; Whores Nest; Pissing Alley; Cutthroat Lane; Foul Lane; Blowbladder Street; and Cats Hole

Love them or loath them W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan operatic fame was born in London on 18 November 1836, S stands for Schwenck

When Napoleon was thinking of invading England his failed attempt was mocked by an unusual ale house sign: ‘My Arse in a Bandbox’

Established in 1902, Ealing Studios in West London are the oldest continuously working film studios in the world

Opened in 1652, Pasqua Rosee’s was the first coffee house in London located on St Michael’s Alley was burned down during the Great Fire 1666

In 1577 John Northbrooke’s Treatise deplored blasphemous swinge-bucklers, tossepots, loitering idle persons and the governing of football

In 1890 the City and South London Railway was the world’s first deep-level underground railway and the first railway to use electric traction

In 14th century London employed rakers to rake the excrement out of toilets, notably one Richard the Raker died by drowning in his own toilet

Margaret Thatcher went to the same Mayfair hairdresser, Evansky as Barbara Castle, while Thatcher sat in main area Castle had a private room

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.