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 Railway is opened, running between Bow in east London, and Islington in north London. These days, the DLR follows part of this original route, and some of the subsequent extensions are serviced by London Overground.
- Thursday – 27th September 1968: Marking the end of British stage censorship, the musical 'Hair' opens at the Shaftsbury Theatre in the West End, complete with on-stage nudity and portrayals of drug-taking.
- Friday – 28th September 1985: Following the accidental shooting of a woman during a police raid, riots break out on the streets of Brixton, south London.
London Quote Of The Week
If the parks be the lungs of London, we wonder what Greenwich Fair is – a periodical breaking-out, we suppose; a sort of spring rash; a three days' fever, which cools the blood for six months afterwards, and at the expiration of which London is restored to its old habit of plodding industry as suddenly and as completely as if nothing had ever occurred to disturb them.
Charles Dickens, Greenwich Fair
Photo by victorianlondon via the Londonist Flickr Pool.