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.

On 5 February 1983 DynoRod were called out to a blocked drain near 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill. To the engineer the blockage looked suspiciously like human remains. When the police popped round the following day Dennis Nilsen confessed that 15 or 16 others had met the same fate since 1978. Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years.

On 5 February 1924 the BBC broadcast the time check ‘pips’, a series of six short tones broadcast at one-second intervals, from Greenwich Observatory for the first time

During World War II HMP Wormwood Scrubs was used to store 26 drums of heavy water, which were to be used to make a nuclear bomb

Leadenhall Market stands on the site of a Roman Basilica, a building used for public administration. It first opened in the 14th century

Christopher Wren in a black marble sarcophagus that was originally made for Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington are all buried in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral

Fitzrovia is named after landowner Henry Fitzroy illegitimate son of King Charles II. The name comes from French ‘fils du roi’/son of the king

The only true home shared by all four Beatles was a flat at 57 Green Street near Hyde Park where they lived in the autumn of 1963

Thomas Carlyle lived at 5 Cheyne Row (now no. 24) Chelsea in 1834 where he entertained Browning, Dickens and Tennyson. He died there in 1881

An embankment behind Arsenal’s east stand gave the expression ‘spion kop’ (lookout in Afrikaan) from where 243 British troops had died so kop for terrace entered football’s lexicon

The eastbound and westbound lines on the Central Line are built above and below each other for much of the line

The Observer newspaper was founded in 1791 at 396 Strand by WS Bourne on the premise that “the establishment of a Sunday newspaper would obtain him a rapid fortune” is the world’s oldest Sunday

In 1610 Dame Alice Owen founded almshouses and a school on the Islington site where she narrowly missed being killed by an arrow

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 29 January 1842 the body of PC Nicholls, ‘his face much bruised and disfigured as if from severe violence’, was found on South Lambeth Road. At the time his demise was attributed ‘death by the visitation of God’. 140 years later a Kennington policeman re-investigated this death by visitation and concluded the culprit as a fellow police officer moreover the relevant page in a police register of the time was missing.

On 29 January twelve bombs explosed in the West End, one person a taxi driver, was hurt. A 13th device was discovered later in an HMV record store

The Blind Beggar was the scene of a murder when thief Bulldog Wallis stabbed a man through the eye with an umbrella later Ronnie Kray killed George Cornell by shooting him through the eye in the same pub

Shoe Lane, EC4 is named after the ancient Sho well that was situated at the north of the street. In 13th century it was Showell Lane

On 29 January 1820 Britain’s King George III died insane at Windsor Castle, ending a reign that saw both the American and French revolutions

On 29 January 1857 Queen Victoria introduced the Victoria Cross with its inscription For Valour, two thirds of all awards have been personally presented by the British monarch

On 29 January 1942 the BBC first broadcast Desert Island Discs its presenter Roy Plomley went on to host the programme 1,791 times

Tradition has it that Pimlico is named after Ben Pimlico, a 17th Century Hoxton brewer who supplied London with a popular Nut Brown ale

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

The Underground’s longest continuous tunnel is on the Northern line and runs from East Finchley to Morden (via Bank), a total of 17.3 miles

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first symphony in 1764 as he and his family lived at 180 Ebury Street, Belgravia

On 29 January 1959 dense fog brought road, rail and air transport in London to a standstill-chemists reported a boom in the sale of smog masks

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 22 January 1970 Heathrow welcomed a Pan Am Boeing 747; the first ‘jumbo jet’ carrying fare-paying passengers has arrived at Heathrow airport. Pan Am Flight Two touched down at 14.14 GMT. The jumbo brought 324 passengers across the Atlantic from New York to London. The return journey to New York did not run so smoothly, 36 of the 153 passengers transferred to other flights after a faulty compressed air bottle, meant take-off was delayed for four-and-a-half hours at Heathrow.

On 22 January 1988 Alexandra Palace was reopened following restoration, the palm court included dates and palms brought from Alexandria, Egyptian-style obelisks and mock sphinxes

On 22 January 1626 In Bleeding Heart Yard, Farringdon Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s mutilated body was found after she danced with the devil

Green Lanes, which runs 7.45 miles from Newington Green to Ridge Avenue in Winchmore Hill, is the longest named thoroughfare in London

In Whitechapel during the mid 1800s you could have a clean hot bath for 6d, or get in someone’s disused warm water for 2d, many chose the latter

Upminster Bridge station has a swastika motif on the floor of the ticket hall installed before the symbol took on its sinister reputation

In Fever Pitch (1997) shots showing Highbury’s 1970 terraces were Fulham’s at Craven Cottage. Arsenal’s ground had become an all-seater

Famous 1950s coffee-bar in Old Compton Street was called 3 I’s one Iranian left becoming 2 I’s. Australian’s bought the lease and kept the name

On 22 January 1927 the first football match was broadcast live on the radio took place at Highbury as Arsenal drew 1-1 with Sheffield United

The total number of carriages in London Underground’s fleet, as of January 2013, was 4,134 and the total number of stations served on the network was 270

Waterloo Bridge, is known as ‘Ladies’ Bridge on account of the World War II goodbyes to troops enroute to Waterloo Station and the women who built it

Frederick Hitch, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his courage at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, became a London Cabbie when he came home

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.