This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 5th November 1605: Following a tip-off, a party of armed men led by a Justice of the Peace discover Guy Fawkes guarding a large amount of gunpowder and incendiary materials in the vaults under the House of Lords.
- Tuesday – 6th November 1869: Queen Victoria opens Blackfriars Bridge, and then Holborn Viaduct.
- Wednesday – 7th November 1783: John Austin, having been convicted for ‘cruel highway robbery’, becomes the last person to be hanged at the Tyburn gallows near Marble Arch.
- Thursday – 8th November 1674: John Milton, author of 'Paradise Lost', dies of gout in his house at Finsbury.
- Friday – 9th November 1911: The Victoria Palace Theatre is opened opposite Victoria Station.
Random London Quote Of The Week
London, the needy villain’s general home,
The common-sewer of Paris and of Rome,
With eager thirst, by folly or by fate,
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Samuel Johnson, 'London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal'
Picture by victorianlondon via the Londonist Flickr Pool.