This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 7 October 2000: The last ever competitive football match to take place at the old Wembley Stadium results in England losing 1-0 to Germany.
- Tuesday – 8 October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is apparently the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts.
- Wednesday – 9 October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring many others.
- Thursday – 10 October 1881: The Savoy Theatre is opened on the Strand, becoming the first public building in the world to be entirely lit by electricity. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience is the first performance to be hosted at the new theatre.
- Friday – 11 October 1573: Sir John Hawkins, Treasurer of the Royal Navy, suffers an assassination attempt whilst riding down the Strand. The would-be assassin, one Peter Burchett, stabs Hawkins, mistaking him for Sir Christopher Hatton. Despite being severely injured by the attack, Hawkins would survive. The same could not be said for Burchett, who would be hanged near the place of the attack.
Random London Quote Of The Week
What is London? Clean, commodious, neat; but, a very few things indeed excepted, an endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending itself over a great tract of land.
Edmund Burke, letter to the Rev. Robert Dodge, 1792
Photo by sinister dexter via the Londonist Flickr Pool.
