Monday Miscellanea

By · September 10, 2007 at 8:28 am · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·
2005 Ashes Ticket

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, worth £400,000. The robbers are arrested 11 hours later.

  • Wednesday – 12th September 2005: The England cricket team beat Australia at The Oval, south London, winning the Ashes for the first time since 1987.

  • Thursday – 13th September 1738: Work starts on laying the foundations of the original Westminster Bridge. Construction of the stone bridge would not be complete until 1750, and would be replaced in 1862 by the wrought iron bridge that we know today.

  • Friday – 14th September 1983: Amy Winehouse is born in Southgate, north London. She would become a successful (and controversial) recording artist.

    • Random London Fact Of The Week

    London is generally thought to have been the first city in the world to reach a population of one million. According to the 1801 Census, the city’s population was 1,096,784 on March 10th of that year.

    London remained the largest city in the world until 1957, when it was overtaken by Tokyo (which is still the world’s largest city today). London is now merely the 25th largest city in the world.

    London’s Weather This Week

    More of the same, by all accounts. Could be worse.

    Image taken from Noodlefish’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 licence.

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    • guest

      Generally thought to be the first city in the world with 1 million? By whom?

      Some other contenders:

      Rome: 1st century CE (Modelski, World Cities: –3000 to 2000)

      Baghdad: 8th century CE (Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census)

      Xian: 8th century CE (Chandler, Modelski)

      Hangzhou: 13th CE (Chandler, Modelski)

      Kaifing: 13th CE (Chandler, Modelski)

      Beijing: 16th CE (Chandler, Modelski)

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