This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th March 1906: The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway opens, running between Baker Street and Elephant & Castle stations. It would soon become known as the Bakerloo Line. Tuesday – 11th March 1692: The Royal Chelsea Hospital is founded by Charles II. Designed by Christopher Wren, the hospital would also become the model for Greenwich’s Royal Navel Hospital. Wednesday – 12th March 1988: The Bank of England......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd March 1982: The Barbican Centre is opened by the Queen. After 15 years of construction, at a cost of £161 million, the centre would become the largest performing arts centre in Europe (as well as being voted the ugliest building in London). Tuesday – 4th March 1882: Britain’s first electric trams go into operation in Leytonstone, East London. Wednesday – 5th March 1856: The second Covent......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 25th February 1900: The first tube station to be known as ‘Bank’ is opened, effectively replacing the old ‘City’ station and providing a link between the Waterloo & City Railway and the newly extended City & South London Railway (now part of the Northern Line). At the same time, nearby King William Street station is closed. Tuesday – 26th February 1797: The Bank of England issues its......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 18th February 1996: An IRA bomb explodes on a double-decker bus on Aldwych, killing the bomber and injuring eight members of the public. Tuesday – 19th February 1960: Prince Andrew is born in the Belgian Suite of Buckingham Palace. Wednesday – 20th February 1913: Two suffragettes set fire to the tea pavilion at Kew Gardens at around 3am, destroying it completely. Thursday – 21st February 1946: Alan......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 11th February 1826: The University of London is founded. It would later be known as University College London (or UCL). Tuesday – 12th February 1554: Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley are executed at the Tower of London. Wednesday – 13th February 1247: A major earthquake causes considerable damage to London. Curiously, it is reported that the quake was preceded for three months by......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th February 1915: Norman Wisdom is born in Marylebone. He would become a very successful entertainer, as well as (bizarrely) a cult film icon in Albania. Tuesday – 5th February 1924: The Greenwich Time Signal pips are broadcast on BBC Radio for the first time. (Lots more geeky detail on this is available in our post from this time last year.) Wednesday – 6th February 1875: The......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 28th January 1807: The gas lamps on Pall Mall are lit, making it the first street in the world to be illuminated in such a fashion. Tuesday – 29th January 1976: Twelve IRA bombs explode in the area around Oxford Street, injuring a taxi driver and starting several small fires. Wednesday – 30th January 1969: The Beatles perform live for the last time ever, on the roof......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 21st January 1976: Concorde’s first commercial service, from London to Bahrain (and Paris to Rio de Janeiro) commences. Tuesday – 22nd January 1876: The Royal Aquarium opens in Westminster. It would be demolished just 26 years later and replaced by the Methodist Central Hall. Wednesday – 23rd January 1571: The Royal Exchange in the City of London is officially opened by Elizabeth I. Over the next few hundred......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 14th January 1437: The Great Stone Gate at the south side of London Bridge collapses, taking down two bridge arches and several houses with it. Tuesday – 15th January 1867: The ice on Regent’s Park Lake gives way while hundreds of people are skating on it. Dozens drown. Wednesday – 16th January 1599: Poet Laureate Edmund Spenser is buried in Westminster. His coffin is borne by other......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 7th January 1927: The first commercial transatlantic telephone service is launched, connecting London and New York. Tuesday – 8th January 1991: A packed rush hour train carrying over one thousand commuters collides with the buffers at Cannon Street station, killing one person and injuring hundreds more. Wednesday – 9th January 1806: Following a grand state funeral, the body of Lord Nelson is buried beneath the dome of......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 17th December 1983: An IRA car bomb explodes near Harrods in Knightsbridge, killing six people (including three police officers) and injuring a further 85 Christmas shoppers. Tuesday – 18th December 1890: The world’s first ‘deep-level’ electric tube line opens, connecting Stockwell and King William Street. As we mentioned last year, the City & South London Railway would later become a part of the Northern Line as we......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th December 1907: Anti-vivisectionists march through central London to protest at the dissection of a brown terrier dog several years earlier. The ‘anti-doggers’ clash with police at Trafalgar Square, in what would become known as the Brown Dog Riots. Tuesday – 11th December 2005: Much of London is covered by a vast plume of smoke, following a series of massive explosions at Buncefield Oil Depot in Hertfordshire.......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd December ????: Nothing of any interest has ever happened in London on this date. Sorry. Tuesday – 4th December 1882: The Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand are opened by Queen Victoria. Wednesday – 5th December 1905: Part of the roof of Charing Cross station collapses, killing six people. Thursday – 6th December 1983: Britian’s first heart and lung transplant operation takes place at Harefield......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 26th November 1983: An armed robbery at the Brinks Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport becomes the largest heist in British history, as £25 million worth of gold bullion is pinched. Tuesday – 27th November 2000: 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor is stabbed in the leg and dies in Peckham, south London. The following six years would see several trials and re-trials over the killing, finally culminating in the......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 19th November 1558: Queen Elizabeth I travels to Highgate on her accession to the throne. She is met by the bishops and escorted through London. Tuesday – 20th November 1992: Fire sweeps through Windsor Castle, causing £40 million worth of damage to over 100 rooms. Wednesday – 21st November 1695: The great composer Henry Purcell dies at his home in Westminster. The cause of his death in......

Due to earlier technical vexations of a non-Stratford-related variety, Monday Miscellanea is a bit later than usual today... This Week In London’s History Monday – 12th November 1974: A 9lb salmon is caught in the Thames – the first time that such a fish has been caught in the dirty old river since 1834 – and sent to the British Museum for identification. Improvements in the water quality are hailed. Tuesday – 13th November......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 5th November 1605: Following a tip-off, a party of armed men led by a Justice of the Peace discover Guy Fawkes guarding a large amount of gunpowder and incendiary materials in the vaults under the House of Lords. Tuesday – 6th November 1869: Queen Victoria opens Blackfriars Bridge, and then Holborn Viaduct. Wednesday – 7th November 1783: John Austin, having been convicted for ‘cruel highway robbery’, becomes......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 29th October 1986: The M25 ‘London orbital’ motorway is officially opened by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, at a ceremony at the last section to be completed (junctions 22 and 23 in Hertfordshire). Tuesday – 30th October 1883: A group known as the Fenian Dynamiters detonates a bomb on the Metropolitan Railway, injuring 62 people. Wednesday – 31st October 1971: An IRA bomb explodes on the 33rd floor......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 22nd October 1809: The Croydon Canal, linking Croydon to Deptford via Forest Hill, is opened. Requiring 28 locks to overcome the gradients of the route, it would never become a commercial success, and would be closed just 37 years later. Tuesday – 23rd October 1731: A fire breaks out in Ashburnham House in Westminster, damaging much of the Cotton Library – a renowned collection of Middle English......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End. Tuesday – 16th October 1987: In the early hours of the morning, a huge storm of hurricane intensity wreaks havoc across London (and much of the rest of southern England). Wednesday – 17th October 1814: At the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a colossal vat containing......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 8th October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts. Tuesday – 9th October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 1st October 1868: St. Pancras Station is officially opened as the London terminus for the Midland Railway, despite its construction being incomplete. Part of the buildings would form the iconic gothic St. Pancras Chambers, which housed the Midland Grand Hotel. Tuesday – 2nd October 1909: Twickenham Stadium hosts its first ever rugby match, with Harlequins beating Richmond 14-10. Wednesday – 3rd October 1975: After three days of......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 24th September 1917: A zeppelin drops a 50 kilogram bomb that lands just outside the Bedford Hotel on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, central London. 13 people are killed and a further 26 injured. Tuesday – 25th September 1818: The first human-to-human blood transfusion is performed at Guy’s Hospital. Previous blood transfusions had used animals’ blood. Wednesday – 26th September 1850: The first stretch of the North London......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 17th September 1961: Police arrest 1,314 demonstrators at a CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) protest in Trafalgar Square. Bertrand Russell is amongst those arrested. Tuesday – 18th September 1970: Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is found dead in his basement flat in Notting Hill, west London. A subsequent inquest records an open verdict on his death, noting that he drank wine and took nine sleeping pills the previous......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th September 1973: IRA bombs explode at King’s Cross and Euston mainline stations, injuring 13 people. Witnesses describe a teenager planting the first bomb by throwing it into the crowded ticket hall at King’s Cross. Tuesday – 11th September 1980: Armed robbers steal almost £1.5m worth of diamonds from a jewellery shop in Knightsbridge, west London. The haul includes a famous stone known as the Marlborough Diamond,......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd September 1878: Passenger steamer Princess Alice collides with cargo ship Bywell Castle on the Thames near Woolwich Pier. All of the 700 passengers of the Princess Alice are either thrown into the heavily polluted river or trapped below the decks of the sinking vessel. Fewer than 100 passengers survive. Tuesday – 4th September 1899: Moorfields Eye Hospital (known at the time as the Royal London Ophthalmic......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 20th August 1989: The Marchioness pleasure boat collides with the dredger Bowbelle under Cannon Street Railway Bridge, causing the Marchioness to sink rapidly. 51 of the pleasure boat’s 132 passengers drown. Tuesday – 21st August 1920: A boy who would be named Christopher Robin Milne is born in Chelsea, West London. His father, the author A. A. Milne, would use him as inspiration for the Christopher Robin......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 13th August 1977: Hundreds of protesters clash with police at a National Front march in Lewisham, south-east London. About 400 Socialist Worker Party members had gathered to try to prevent the National Front march, but had been prevented by police, leading to attacks on the police themselves and over 200 arrests. Tuesday – 14th August 1821: The funeral procession of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, makes......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 6th August 1937: Barbara Windsor is born in Shoreditch in central London. She would achieve fame as an actress, notably as a ‘saucy strumpet’ in the Carry On films of the 60s and 70s and later as a major character in Eastenders. Tuesday – 7th August 2001: The Department of Health pays £27 million for a private Harley Street heart hospital, re-nationalising it and bringing it into......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th July 1966: England defeat West Germany in the FIFA World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, claiming the Jules Rimet Trophy (and, of course, the status of Football World Champions for the next four years). Tuesday – 31st July 1962: Violence erupts at a rally of the Union Movement (formerly known as the British Union of Fascists) in Dalston, East London. Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the......