This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th March 1906: The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway opens, running between Baker Street and Elephant & Castle stations. It would soon become known as the Bakerloo Line. Tuesday – 11th March 1692: The Royal Chelsea Hospital is founded by Charles II. Designed by Christopher Wren, the hospital would also become the model for Greenwich’s Royal Navel Hospital. Wednesday – 12th March 1988: The Bank of England......

Last week we challenged you to peer into alternative universes and find out what London would have been like had history taken a different course. Roll the Dice sent in this Teutonic take on the Tube. Had the Germans won either of the world wars, the London underground might now look something like this. We'll leave you to make the inevitable wisecracks about efficiency and punctuality in the comments. Now, we're offering £20 to......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 16th July 1924: Crowds of photographers, reporters and ‘autograph seekers’ greet the pilots of the first (successful) round-the-world flight as it landed at Croydon airport for its London stopover. Tuesday – 17th July 1974: A bomb explodes in a tourist-packed room of the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41 others. No-one claims responsibility for the bombing, and no culprits are found. Wednesday – 18th......

Some of you might recall that a few years ago the Central Line was suspended for almost three months, following a derailment at Chancery Lane. At that time, this meant that this Londonista’s daily commute often involved walking from Bank to Holborn, past St Paul’s and across Holborn Viaduct – a part of our journey that soon got annoying, but was still quicker than taking the overwhelmed bus services. (London Underground never did cough......

OK, OK, we know most of you will be sick of reading about Hawksmoor. But Londonist are completer-finisher types, and after stalking so many lesser London luminaries we feel obliged to tackle the great church-building, conspiracy-generating architect. There must be some readers out there who haven’t read Iain Sinclair’s trademark lucidity-shy ramblings on how Hawksmoor’s six churches align with other sites of dubious significance to form a pretty pattern. Or Peter Ackroyd’s erudite reinterpretation......

Like so many of our stalks, you may or may not have heard of the fellow, but you’ll certainly know his handiwork. Richard Seifert has made more of a mark, some would say stain, on London’s modern skyline than any other individual. His most famous buildings are the NatWest Tower (properly known as Tower 42) and the skeletal Centre Point, but he also contributed, for better or worse, tens of other familiar structures to our......

Note to RSS readers: This is not about Abu Hamza. Found: a very old and valuable manuscript from the dawn of modern science. Wanted: a ‘white knight’ with lots of cash to secure it for the nation. That’s the nub of the gist, anyway. The minutes of the Royal Society from 1661-1682 have been rediscovered in a private Hampshire home during an evaluation of the owner’s antiques. ‘I thought it must be too good......

Hong Kong and New York are still running in front though. According to a database drawn up by Emporis, London is now ranked at 23 in the top 100 cities listed by "the visual impact of their skylines". The list is compiled using a formula that assigns points based on the floor count of each city's highrise buildings. London is at something of a disadvantage because we have so many ancient squat buildings that......