45 Random London Facts
1. In 2014, a single parking space in London was sold for £400,000.
2. The first London Underground trains were nicknamed 'sewer trams'.
3. There is a rain room is london where it will rain everywhere in that room except for the spot your standing in
4. A group of pigeons regularly boards the London Underground at Hammersmith and alights at Ladbroke Grove.
5. London burnt down in 1077, 1087, 1132, 1136, 1203, 1212, 1220 and 1227, as well as 1666.
6. Traffic in central London moves at the same speed as horse-drawn carriages did in the 1800s.
7. A man gets robbed in London every 4.5 minutes! (and he is getting fed up of it).
8. 70% of all train journeys in England start or finish in London.
9. When flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave
10. Traffic in central London moves at the same speed as horse-drawn carriages a century ago.
11. In 2010, a black Nigerian couple gave birth to a blue-eyed, blond-haired white baby in London.
12. To prepare for his role as Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch went to the London Zoo to study lizards.
13. There are over 300 languages spoken in London schools.
14. If every ice sheet and glacier on Earth melted, global sea levels would rise by 260 feet—London and L.A. would be underwater.
15. The London Underground was originally intended to terminate in Paris.
16. In 1894, The Times estimated that by 1950 London would be nine feet deep in horse manure.
17. Lloyd’s of London once offered reduced premiums for missionary ships because they had divine protection.
18. A man gets robbed in London every 4.5 minutes! (and he is getting fed up of it)
19. The Summer Olympic Games have been held in London 3 times, in 1908, 1948 and 2012.
20. The busiest polling station in Australian elections is in London.
21. At the 2012 London Olympics, 55% of the athletes were found to have tooth decay.
22. 11,000 keys are lost on London’s Tubes and buses every year.
23. Chocolate may be a more effective cough remedy than cough medicine, according to a study at Imperial College London.
24. London's Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight in 1807.
25. King James I of England kept 11 lions, 2 leopards, 3 eagles, 2 owls, 2 mountain cats and a jackal in the tower of London.
26. A restaurant in London once sold ice cream made with breast milk.
27. In 1849, the Viceroy of Egypt gave London Zoo a hippo in exchange for a greyhound.
28. Six streets in London had their names changed after murders took place there.
29. The average London pigeon has 1.6 feet.
30. Slum dwellings made up 20% of the houses in London in 1949.
31. Marmalade was an aphrodisiac in 17th-century London.
32. London has the most billionaires of any city in the world.
33. In the late 1600s London was plagued by an attacker who would spank his victims with a rod and shout "Spanko!" before running away.
34. Toshers were men who earned a living by searching London’s sewers for lost valuables.
35. London, with a population of over 8,000,000, is not a city, though the City of London, with a population of about 7,000, is.
36. According to the Forestry Commission, London is 'the largest urban forest in the world'.
37. A woman was found dead on the couch of her London apartment 3 years after her death. The TV was still on.
38. Soccer developed in London's famed Newgate Prison in the early 1800s. Prisoners who had their hands cut off for crimes of theft came up with a sport that used only the feet. The game spread from there.
39. On this day in 1988 a Pan Am flight from London to New York exploded in mid-air killing everyone on board.
40. The Prince Charles cinema in London has ninjas that sneak up on anyone in the theater who is making noise or throwing things.
41. Spitalfields in London used to be known as Lolsworth.
42. On 17 April 2011, Emmanuel Mutai won the London Marathon. The next day, Geoffrey Mutai won the Boston Marathon. The two men are not related.
43. The amount of money you get at the start of Monopoly (£1,500) is the current average weekly rent in central London.
44. In London SW3, £100 would buy you a piece of property the size of an Oyster card.
45. At the outbreak of the Second World War, zookeepers killed all the poisonous insects and snakes in London Zoo, in case it was bombed and they escaped.
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