Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

Monday - 11th 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.

Tuesday - 12th October 1609: London composer Thomas Ravencroft publishes an early version of what would become the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice. Wednesday - 13th October 1884: At the International Meridian Conference (taking place in Washington, D.C.), Greenwich is established as the location for the 'Prime Meridian' - the starting point for calculating longitude and the world’s time zones. Thursday - 14th October 1852: King’s Cross Station is opened. Friday - 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End.

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 Joshua Michaelis, via the Londonist Flickr Pool.