Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

Monday – 10th September 1973: IRA bombs explode at King’s Cross and Euston mainline stations, injuring 13 people. Witnesses describe a teenager planting the first bomb by throwing it into the crowded ticket hall at King’s Cross.

Tuesday – 11th September 1980: Armed robbers steal almost £1.5m worth of diamonds from a jewellery shop in Knightsbridge, west London. The haul includes a famous stone known as the Marlborough Diamond, worth £400,000. The robbers are arrested 11 hours later. Wednesday – 12th September 2005: The England cricket team beat Australia at The Oval, south London, winning the Ashes for the first time since 1987. Thursday – 13th September 1738: Work starts on laying the foundations of the original Westminster Bridge. Construction of the stone bridge would not be complete until 1750, and would be replaced in 1862 by the wrought iron bridge that we know today. Friday – 14th September 1983: Amy Winehouse is born in Southgate, north London. She would become a successful (and controversial) recording artist.

Random London Fact Of The Week

London is generally thought to have been the first city in the world to reach a population of one million. According to the 1801 Census, the city’s population was 1,096,784 on March 10th of that year.

London remained the largest city in the world until 1957, when it was overtaken by Tokyo (which is still the world’s largest city today). London is now merely the 25th largest city in the world.

London’s Weather This Week

More of the same, by all accounts. Could be worse.

Image taken from Noodlefish’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 licence.