Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

• Monday – 8th December 1868: London’s first traffic light is positioned at the junction of Bridge Street and Great George Street in Westminster.
  
• Tuesday – 9th December 1608: John Milton is born in Cheapside in the City of London. He would become a famous poet, best known for his poem Paradise Lost.
  
• Wednesday – 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.
  
• Thursday – 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.
  
• Friday – 12th December 1988: Three commuter trains collide near Clapham Junction in south west London. 35 people are killed, and more than 100 injured.

Random London Quote Of The Week

I thought of London spread out in the sun
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat

Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings

London’s Weather This Week
Brrr.

Photo taken from Slugger O’Toole’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence.