This Week In London’s History

• Monday – 17th March 1984: The Boat Race is postponed after the Cambridge boat crashes into a moored barge less than an hour before the race’s scheduled start.
  
• Tuesday – 18th March 1496: Mary Tudor is born at Richmond Palace. She would become ‘queen consort of France’ due to her marriage to Louis XII.
  
• Wednesday – 19th March 2005: As many as 200,000 protesters march through central London on the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
  
• Thursday – 20th March 1974: A gunman attempts to kidnap Princess Anne by ambushing her chauffer-driven car as she returns to Buckingham Palace from a charity event on Pall Mall. Despite shooting several people, the man fails in his kidnap attempt and is arrested.
  
• Friday – 21st March 1962: Driverless tube trains are demonstrated in South Ealing.

Random London Fact Of The Week
Some facts about the escalators on the London Underground:

• It is well known that the longest escalator on the underground (and, in fact, in Western Europe) is at Angel – 197 feet in length. But somewhat less well known is the location of the shortest – at Chancery Lane (just 30 feet long).
  
• Bank station has the most escalators of any station on the network – 15 in total (plus two sloped ‘travelators’).
  
• There are more than 400 escalators on the entire network. It has been estimated that, in total, they travel enough distance in a single week to circumnavigate the globe. Twice.
  
• The tube’s (and, arguably, the world’s) first standard escalator was installed at Earls Court on October 4th 1911.
  
• The general public were initially quite fearful of the escalators on the underground. In attempt to reassure passengers of the safety of these new contraptions, a one-legged man known as Bumper Harris was hired to ride on the escalator at Earl’s Court all day long, demonstrating its safety.

London’s Weather This Week
Some of this week might conceivably feel a bit spring-like, but don’t be fooled – it’s going to get jolly cold overnight, and there may well be rain (or even a small possibility of snow!) later in the week. Weird.

Photo taken from GTPS’s Flickr photostream.