This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 24th January 1969: Students and staff at the London School of Economics riot in protest over the installation of steel security gates.
- Tuesday - 25th January 1731: William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, and Lord John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, hold a duel in Green Park over ‘libellous’ accusations of homosexuality. Neither is seriously injured.
- Wednesday - 26th January 1926: In Soho, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird conducts the first public demonstration of television.
- Thursday - 27th January 1772: The Pantheon, an entertainment venue on Oxford Street, is opened.
- Friday - 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.
London Quote Of The Week
Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.
Samuel Johnson
Picture by Max Nathan via the Londonist Flickr Pool.