Monday Miscellanea

Dave Haste
By Dave Haste Last edited 126 months ago
Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

  • Monday2 September 1666: The Great Fire of London starts at a bakery on Pudding Lane. It would burn for three days, destroying over 13,000 buildings.
  • Tuesday3 September 1878: Passenger steamer Princess Alice collides with cargo ship Bywell Castle on the Thames near Woolwich Pier. All of the 700 passengers of the Princess Alice are either thrown into the heavily polluted river or trapped below the decks of the sinking vessel. Fewer than 100 passengers survive.
  • Wednesday4 September 1899: Moorfields Eye Hospital (known at the time as the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital) is opened at its current site on City Road (having previously been situated on Moorfields since 1805, hence the name). It would become the largest eye hospital in the world.
  • Thursday5 September 1975: An IRA bomb explodes in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane in central London, causing 2 fatalities and injuries to a further 63 people.
  • Friday6 September 1997: The funeral of Princess Diana takes place at Westminster Abbey. The service is watched on television by millions of people worldwide, as Elton John performs a re-worked version of 'Candle in the Wind' and Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, delivers a controversial speech criticising the media and (indirectly) the Royal Family.

Random London Quote Of The Week

If you do not want to live among wicked people, do not live in London.

Richard of Devizes (Benedictine monk, 1192)

Photo by Chris Beckett via the Londonist Flickr Pool.

Last Updated 01 September 2013