On 12 March London seems to have held its collective breath and done nothing. To liven up the date in 1969 Paul McCartney, then aged 27, married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office with Miss Eastman’s six-year-old daughter in attendance. Hundreds of distraught fans gathered outside seeing their chance of marrying their idol slip away. The ceremony was delayed because the best man, McCartney’s brother Mike McGear of the Scaffold pop group, arrived late.

On 12 March 1836 pioneering cookery writer Mrs Beeton was born in Cheapside, her Book of Household Management is still in print

Wife selling in Smithfield didn’t become illegal until the early 20th century. One of the last reported instances, a woman in 1913 claimed that she had been sold to one of her husband’s workmates for £1

London’s smallest statue can be found on Philpot Lane – a mouse – a memorial to two builders who were killed working on the Monument

In 1985 eight people were killed in a gas explosion at Manor Fields Estate Putney Police found bags stuffed with £20 notes in the debris

Edward VI punished Westminster Abbey (St Peter’s) by diverting their funding to St Paul’s hence the phrase robbing Peter to pay Paul’

When the Coliseum Theatre opened in 1904 it featured a private elevator to transport the King to the royal box. It broke down!

The Hoope and Grapes, Aldgate has a listening tube which runs from the bar to the cellar so the landlord can listen for treasonable gossip

When Billy (the police horse who controlled spectators at the 1923 FA Cup final) died, his rider was given one of his hooves as an inkwell

The Jubilee Line was initially named the Fleet Line after the River Fleet; however it was changed to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee

When Odham’s publisher Julius Elias died in 1946 his successor claimed Elias continued to run the Long Acre firm through him as a medium

We know six ravens are kept at the Tower to keep London safe from invasion, but in 1981 one escaped and flew into a pub in East London

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 5 March 1879 a coal porter found a wooden box in the Thames near Barnes Bridge. Inside was the remains of Miss Julia Thomas, murdered by her servant, Kate Webster who then disposed of the body by dismembering it, boiling the flesh off the bones, and throwing most of the remains into the Thames. Found guilty and hanged at Wandsworth Prison. In a twist of fate naturalist David Attenborough during building work found the missing skull of the victim.

On 5 March 1969 the Old Bailey’s most expensive hearing ended after 39-days when Ronnie and Reggie Kray were given 30 years’ for murder

During the Jack the Ripper investigation the police paid £100 for 2 tracker bloodhounds but they got lost and needed the Police to find them

The last wolf in the City of London is commemorated at the spot it was killed, where a wolf’s head forms the waterspout of the Aldgate pump

Fragrance Madeleine was trialled at Piccadilly station in 2001 to make the Tube more pleasant. Stopped after days people said they felt ill

The last male Prime Minister to wear a wedding ring in public was Harold Wilson, in 1976, in fact the last occupant of No 10 to regularly sport a wedding ring was Lady Thatcher

Starting in 1908 with a Perrier sign, it now costs £2 million a year to advertise your firm on a Piccadilly Circus neon sign

The Lamb in Lamb’s Conduit Street had etched glass partitions preventing wealthy drinkers having to watch common men drinking in next bar

On 5 March 1870 the first ever International Football match was England vs Scotland held at The Oval, the first of many England draws 1-1

In 1750 the first umbrella used by Jonas Hanway brought back from Persia. Cabbies fearful they’d lose their wet weather called him a Frenchman

Jack Dee once worked in the Ritz’s kitchen. One night he cooked a doorman dinner, got a 50p tip. Made him realise his life was in a mess

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub off Fleet Street, built in 1667, has a famous resident – a dead parrot named Polly who swore in many languages

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 26 February 1995 Barings Bank, Britain’s oldest investment banking firm, and the world’s second oldest merchant bank (after Berenberg Bank), founded in 1762 was forced into bankruptcy after an employee in Singapore, 28 year old Nicholas William Leeson, speculated in derivatives on Tokyo stock prices that resulted in losses exceeding $1.4 billion. A trading jacket thought to have been worn by Leeson while trading was subsequently sold for £21,000.

On 26 February 1797 the Bank of England issued the first £1 banknote it remained in circulation until 1983 when the £1 coin was introduced

Pentonville Prison held a week long training course for trainee executioners who learned how carry out an execution with speed and efficiency

The first Palladian building built in Britain was Queen’s House, Greenwich commissioned by Anne of Denmark, wife of James I

The name ‘Bunhill Fields’ as in the Burial Ground is thought to be derived from ‘Bone Hill’ an area used as a burial ground for centuries

Henry VIII’s Chelsea Manor, which he gifted to Catherine Parr as a wedding present, stood where 19-26 Cheyne Walk now stand

William Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress was inspired by the life history of the infamous Sally Salisbury who worked Covent Garden’s brothels

French Ordinary Court EC3 takes its name from a fixed price menu or as Samuel Pepys called it a French Ordinary

Arsenal tube station was originally Gillespie Road renamed when the club moved North. It is the only station named after a football team

In 1860 Sir Edward Watkins, Chairman of the East London Railway developed plans to build a ‘channel tunnel’ linking Britain with Europe

From his Wapping soap factory John Knight produced the famous Knight’s Castile soap, which won a medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851

On 26 February 2010 The Barbican hosted an ongoing concert given by 40 zebra finches with guitars as perches and cymbals as feeders

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 19 February 1982 it was reported Brixton police had adopted a rather novel way of conducting identity parades. Suspects would mingle freely with crowds at the foot of escalators, the witness could then look down from the top and hopefully from some considerable distance identify the culprit. It was said to assuage ethnic minority’s reluctance in coming forward to formal identity parades. It possibly gave the suspects a chance to disappear.

On 19 February 1401 William Sawtrey thought to be the first English religious martyr was burned at the stake at Smithfields

In 2005 drug-crazed squirrels eagerly dug up and ate the secreted stash of crack cocaine buried in garden flower beds by a dealer to avoid being caught by police in Brixton

One of the first houses in England to be lit by electricity was that of scientist Sir William Crookes at 7 Kensington Park Gardens

Seven people have died by falling off the Monument to the Great Fire of London before the safety rail was built, curiously the majority were bakers

In February 1820 in a stable in Cato Street the Bow Street Runners captured radical revolutionaries who planned to murder the Prime Minister

On 19 February 1965 in just two takes The Beatles recorded You’re Going To Lose That Girl at Abbey Road Studios, site of the famous pedestrian crossing

Brixton Market was the first market in London to have electric lighting and stands, as a result, Electric Avenue

In the 16th century Elizabeth I decreed that, ‘no foteballe (football) play to be used or suffered within the City of London’

On 19 February 2015 The Tube Challenge, for visiting all 270 stations on the Underground was beaten by Ronan McDonald and Clive Burgess in 16 hours, 14 minutes and 10 seconds

As well as ferrying passengers from A to B, Watermen would pull bodies from the Thames, landing them at Southwark

The Queen has nine Royal thrones – One at the House of Lords, two at Westminster Abbey, and six in the throne room at Buckingham Palace

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 12 February 1682 Thomas Thynne predecessor of the current incumbent at Longleat House and the Marquesses of Bath was shot dead in his coach on Pall Mall where now stands the Institute of Directors. Capt. Vratz, Lt. Stern and a pole called Boroski had been hired by Count Königsmarck who fancied Thynne’s wife. The killers were executed, but not so the Swedish count, Königsmark however was acquitted of the charge of being an accessory.

On 12 February 1554 Lady Jane Grey who claimed England’s throne for nine days was beheaded at the Tower after being charged with treason

Composer Ivor Novello spent time in Wormwood Scrubs Prison after being jailed for altering documents relating to his Rolls Royce car

Shoreditch probably takes its name from the ditch of Scorre or Sceorf as it was knowns as Scoredich in 1148

From a first floor room at St Mary’s Hospital on Praed Street, Paddington, Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin

Sir Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII in 1535, was born in Milk Street. There is a statute on the Chelsea Embankment marking the place of the last home

Music hall great Marie Lloyd was born in Plumber Street, Shoreditch in 1870, she was showcased by her father at the Eagle Tavern in Hoxton and in 1884 making her professional début as Bella Delmere

Before Nelson’s statute was hoisted aloft in 1843 fourteen men dined on the platform at the top of the world’s tallest Corinthian column

In London 9 distinct football codes are played: Harrow, Eton (2), Association, Rugby Union and League, Gaelic, Gridiron and Australian rules

The London Hackney Carriages Act 1843 forbids a cabbie whose ‘For Hire’ light is on to seek trade whilst the vehicle is moving – fine £200

William Perkin, inventor of the first synthetic dye – mauve, lived at St David’s Lane Shadwell and was christened at St Paul’s Church Shadwell

On 12 February 1852 at 51 Bedford Street, Strand, plumber George Jennings opened London’s first female public toilets

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.