Welcome to Londiniumolympics.com

A webpage dedicated to looking at the history of sport in London.

Welcome to Londinium Olympics.

A Brief History of Londinium

Before the Romans invaded Britain, the Thames valley was tame by nature. The area was a relatively uninhabited marsh land. Then in 45 AD the Roman commander Aulus Plautius (platypus to his friends) invaded the island. He set off for Colchester, then the leading town in Southern Britain to conquer the British. But Platypus was stopped by the Thames ( no it wasn't the congestion charge), he was forced to construct a bridge (I should have mentioned he had thousands of other men with him at the time).

The city was rapidly rebuilt, and grew as a trading centre. By the second century AD, Londinium held the largest town hall west of the Alps (Ken would be proud), a governor's palace, temple, bathhouses, and a large fort (I said fort).

In 200 AD a wall was built around the city. For over a millennium the shape and size of London was defined by this wall. (who built this wall?). The area within the wall is now "the City", our famous financial district.

At the peak of the Roman empire Londinium grew to a population of 45,000. About the same as present day Ayr in Scotland.

Look below for the more indepth history of London, which argues against the idea london was founded by Platypus.

History of Londinium Sport

We have a vast knowledge of sporting ideas from Roman films such as Gladiator, and TV programs like Up Pompei. But archaeological evidence is also useful. We all know the stories of Lions, elephants, gladiators, feeding Chrstians to the lions (imagine keeping score on that game).

In Britain archaeological evidence for Roman sport is limited to a coliseum in Chester (no it's not a night club) where a Roman amphitheater has been discovered. As shown on the BBC program timewatch (link below). Those hard working boffins discovered the ground had held major sporting events to entertain the people. There is no way of telling the detail of what sporting events they held you can only imagine, perhaps elephant mud wrestling. Up until the archaeologists had excavated the site no one from Chester had seen the amphitheater for hundreds of years. (Isn't that like where Chester City FC play their football matches)

Modern Sport in London

Now, one of the centres of sport for the UK, historically London is the natural location for the FA Cup, the league cup, the home matches of the England football and rugby sides. Although recently Cardiff has taken the FA and league cup from London due to the rebuilding of Wembley. London is set to host it's third Olympics in 2012. Ofcourse the greatest sporting event London must hold is the annual goat race between Oxford and Cambridge to decide which is the best university in the World. In recent times the boat race has taken over as the main sporting event.

History links

:www.roman-britain.org/places/londinium.htm : A website showing the Roman place names on a map of the UK.

http://iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/chesterchronicle/tm_objectid=15662919&method=full&siteid=50020&headline=work-restarts-on-un-earthing-past--name_page.html : A website from the Cheshire online web site detailing a Roman coliseum in Chester.

http://www.britainexpress.com/London/roman-london.htm : History of London on Britainexpress website.

Links to history of sport in London and and in Roman Empire

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/colosseum/ : BBC website on history of the Rome coliseum

Sport links

http://sport.guardian.co.uk : Sport section of the Guardian a London based newspaper. Not much on Roman sport

http://www.thefa.com/ :Official website of the FA.

London newspaper websites

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ : A website on London news

The more detailed modernised history of London

Legend of prehistoric London
Mediæval mythology by Geoffrey of Monmouth says London was founded by Brutus of Troy in the Bronze Age, and was known as Troia Nova, which evolved to Trinovantum. King Lud (he was a ludite, he never used the internet) renamed the town CaerLudein, from which London was derived. Yet, despite intensive excavations, archaeologists have not found evidence of prehistoric or major settlement in the area (So it was all a myth). There have been scattered prehistoric finds, evidence of farming, burial (my dog is allways burrying stuff) and traces of habitation (what the supermarket), but nothing more substantial. It is now considered unlikely that a pre-Roman city existed, but as much of the Roman city remains unexcavated, it is still possible that some settlement may yet be discovered (I should go with my dog, he'll find the stuff).

In prehistoric times, London was most likely a rural area with scattered settlement. Rich finds such as the Battersea Shield (was that was the last time Fulham won a trophy), found in the Thames near Chelsea (oh i should have known they win everything), suggest the area was important, there may have been important settlements at Egham and Brentford, and there was a hillfort at Uppall, but no city in the area of the Roman London, the present day City of London.
Roman London
Londinium was established as a town by the Romans after the invasion of 43 AD led by the Emperor Claudius. Archaeological excavation since the 1970s has also failed to unearth any convincing traces of major settlement before c.50 — so ideas about Londinium being a military foundation around the Fort that protected London Bridge are now largely discounted (what about Platypus's bridge, are you saying that is a myth too).

The name Londinium is thought to be pre-Roman in origin although there is no consensus on what it means. One suggestion is that it derived from a personal name meaning 'fierce' (Must have been to Millwall). However, recent research by Richard Coates has suggested that the name derives from pre-Celtic Old European — Plowonida — from 2 roots, "plew" and "nejd", meaning something like "the flowing river" or "the wide flowing river". Londinium may mean "the settlement on the wide river". He suggests the river was called the Thames up river where it was narrower, and Plowonida down river where it was too wide to ford (Sierra).

Archaeologists in 2006 think London was founded as a civilian settlement by 50 AD. A wooden drain by the side of the main Roman road excavated at No 1 Poultry was dated to 47 AD, this is likely to be the foundation date.

Ten years later, Londinium was sacked by the Iceni (you saw ni too, where is he) lead by the British queen Boudica. Excavation has revealed extensive evidence of destruction by fire at this time (well, if we're being fussy, maybe they had just had a big barbecue), recently a military compound has been discovered in the City of London which may have been the HQ for the Roman fight back against the British uprising.

The city recovered after perhaps 10 years, and reached its population height by around 120 AD, with a population of roughly 60,000. London became the capital of Britannia, or Roman Britain, (previously the capital was the older, nearby town of Colchester). After this it entered a slow decline; however, habitation and associated building work did not cease. By 375 London was a small wealthy community protected by complete defences. By 410 the Romans withdrew from Britain, with the citizens ordered to look after their own defenses. By the middle of the 5th century the Roman city was practically abandoned.

Under Saxon London after London being abandoned for perhaps 150 years, its strategic position on the Thames meant by 600 Anglo-Saxons had revived settlement in the area. The Saxon settlements were not in the ancient walled City of London ( Lundenburh to the Saxons, or "London Fort"), but an area named Lundenwic = "London settlement" one km upstream on the Thames.

In the recent era, excavations in the Covent Garden area uncovered extensive Anglo-Saxon settlements dating back to the 7th century. The excavations show the settlement covered around 600,000 square metres, stretching from the modern-day National Gallery site in the west to Aldwych in the east. "Aldwych" is a changing of the Anglo-Saxon ealdwic whioch meant old settlement. So some time in the late 9th or early 10th C, the focus of settlement shifted from the 'Old District' back to the City of London. This may have been due to administrative changes introduced by King Alfred after his defeat of the Danes, or a move to a site easier to defend against Viking raids.

Alfred appointed his relation Aethelred, the heir to the destroyed Kingdom of Mercia, as Governor of London and established two defended Boroughs to defend the bridge which was probably rebuilt at this time. London became known as Lundenburh, and the southern end of the Bridge was established as the Borough of Southwark or Suthringa Geworc as it was firstly known.
Mediæval London
The Norman invasion of Englandv in 1066 is considered by many to be the beginning of the Later Middle Ages. The early Middle Ages, are sometimes called the Dark Ages. Under William the Conqueror several forts were constructed in London, the Tower of London, Baynard's Castle and Montfichet's Castle to prevent rebellions, William the Conqueror also granted a charter in 1067 upholding the Saxon rights, laws and privileges. Its growing self-government became firm with election rights granted by King John in 1199 and 1215. In 1097 William Rufus the son of William the Conqueror began the construction of 'Westminster Hall', the hall was to prove the basis of the Palace of Westminster which through the Later Mediæval era was the prime royal residence. In 1176 construction began of the famous London Bridge (finished in 1209) built on the site of several earlier wooden bridges. This bridge would last 600 years, remaining the only bridge across London's main river till 1739.

During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler, against attempts to re-impose forms of serfdom, that had lessened, after the Balck death, London was invaded. A group of peasants stormed the Tower of London and executed the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop, and Lord Treasurer. The peasants looted the city and set fire to numerous buildings. Tyler was stabbed to death by the Lord Mayor in a confrontation at Smithfield, thus ending the revolt. After some dishonest activities by the king, promissing them things, and a large number of executions.

During the Later Medieval era London grew up in two different parts. The nearby up-river town of Westminster became the Royal centre of government, whereas the City of London became the centre of commerce and trade. The area between them entirely urbanised by 1600.

Trade and commerce grew steadily during the Later Middle Ages, and London grew rapidly as a result. In 1100 London's population was little more than 15,000. By 1300 it had grown to roughly 80,000. Trade in London was organised into various guilds, that effectively controlled the city, and elected the Lord Mayor of London.

Later Mediæval London was made up of narrow and twisting streets, and most of the buildings were made from combustible materials such as wood and straw, which made fire a constant threat. Sanitation in London was poor. The metropolis lost at least half its' population during the Black Death in the mid-14th century. Between 1348 and the Great Plague of 1666 there were sixteen outbreaks of plague in the city, killing large portions. With some famines adding more deaths too.

Henry Tudor, seized the throne of England as Henry VII in 1485, after the Battle of Bosworth, and married Elizabeth of York a member of the rival dynasty, so putting an end to the War of the Roses. He commissioned the ‘’Henry VII's Chapel’’ at Westminster Abbey, and continued the royal practice of borrowing funds from the City of London for his wars versus the French nation, - and repaid the loans on the due date, which was something of an innovation. He seems to have taken little interest in developing London. But meanwhile the comparative stability of the Tudors had long term effects on the city, which grew rapidly during the 16th C, as the nobles found that wealth and power were now easist won by competing for favour at court, not just by warring amongst themselves in provinces as they had so often done in the past. But Tudor London was continuing to be full of conflict and mayhem, compared to our standards today. In 1497 a pretender who was in actual fact Perkin Warbeck, claiming to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger brother of the boy monarch/dictator Edward V, encamped on Blackheath with followers. At first there was a panic among Londoners, but the king organised the defence of the city, and the rebels dispersed, and Warbeck was soon caught and executed.

The Reformation produced little bloodshed in London, with most higher class members co-operating to bring about gradual shifts to Protestantism. Before the Reformation, over half of the area of London was occupied by monasteries, nunneries and other religious houses, and a third of the inhabitants were monks, nuns and friars. Thus Henry VIII’s “Dissolution of the Monasteries” had a big effect on the city as nearly all of this property changed hands. The process started in the mid 1530s, and by 1538 most of the larger houses had been closed.

Shortly before his death, Henry refounded St Bartholomew's Hospital, but most of the large buildings were left unoccupied when he died in 1547. In the reign of Edward VI many passed to the City Livery Companies in lieu of payment of crown debts, and in some cases the rents arising from them were applied to charitable purposes. Separately, in 1550 the City purchased the manor of Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames and refounded the monastery of St. Thomas as St. Thomas' Hospital. Christ's Hospital was established in this period, and Bridewell Palace was converted into a children's home and house of correction for women. The Dissolution was also highly profitable for favoured courtiers who were able to obtain property on generous terms. Much of this was intensively rebuilt, cramming the extra housing required by London’s burgeoning population into every corner.

In 1553, Lady Jane Grey was received at the Tower of London as queen, but the lord mayor, aldermen and recorder soon changed course, proclaiming Mary I of England queen instead. The following year the new queen's decision to marry Philip II of Spain provoked a uprising led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who took possession of Southwark, and later reached Charing Cross, on the road from Westminster to the City, which is now regarded as the fulcrum of London, before moving to Ludgate. But there was no uprising in the City soWyatt surrendered, and was executed. Demonstrating the crucial political importance of the City at that time, and the small importance of the districts outside the walls.

The capital of England and Wales was rapidly rising in importance amongst Europe’s commercial centres. Many small industries were booming, notably weaving. Trade expanded beyond Western Europe to Russia, the Levant and Americas. This was the period of mercantilism and monopoly trading companies such as the Russia Company (1555) and the rapacious greed East India Company (1600) established in London by Royal Charter. The latter, which ultimately came to rule much of India, was one of the key institutions in London and Britain as a whole for two and a half centuries. In 1572 the Spanish attacking the Dutch and to some extent low countries, revolt, destroyed the great commercial city of Antwerp, giving London first place among North Sea ports. Immigrants arrived in London not just from all over England and Wales, but from abroad as well, for example Huguenots from France.

It was during this period that the first maps of London were drawn. The huge bulk of the population was still enclosed in the City, living at a density which in the 21st century is unknown in the developed world. The old highway from the City to the royal court at Westminster, The Strand, was lined with aristocrats’ mansions, but the two settlements were otherwise separate, and Westminster was a small fraction of the size of the City. The Thames, not the Strand, was the most important means of communication between the two. Other districts which are almost as central in 21st C London as are Westminster and the City themselves were still rural in the late 16th century. Covent Garden really was a market garden. Hospitals and convalescent homes were established in Holborn and Bloomsbury to take advantage of the country air. Islington and Hoxton were outlying villages.
The late 16th century, when William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived and worked in London, was one of the most full periods in the city’s cultural history. There was considerably hostility to the development of the theatre however. Public entertainments produced crowds, which were feared by the authorities because they might become mobs, and by many ordinary citizens who dreaded that large gatherings might contribute to the spread of plague. London Theatre itself was discountenanced by the increasingly influential Puritan strand in the nation. However Queen Elizabeth loved plays, that were performed for her privately at Court, and approved of public performances of " such plays only as were fitted to yield honest recreation and no example of evil." On April 11, 1582, the Lords of the Council wrote to the Lord Mayor to the effect that, as "her Majesty sometimes took delight in those pastimes, it had been thought not unfit, having regard to the season of the year and the clearance of the city from infection, to allow of certain companies of players in London, partly that they might thereby attain more dexterity and perfection the better to content her Majesty."

Nonetheless the theatres were mostly built outside of the City boundaries, especially on the south side of the river, which was already established as an entertainment centre where less salubrious entertainments such as bear-baiting might be seen. Theatres on Bankside included The Globe, The Rose, The Hope. The Swan, and The Theatre, and The Curtain were in located in Shorch, beyond the City’s eastern wall, and the Blackfriars Theatre, although within the walls, was outside the City’s jurisdiction.

During the mostly calm later years of Elizabeth's some of her courtiers and some of the wealthier citizens of London built themselves country residences in Middlesex, Surrey and Essex an early stirring of the villa movement, the taste for residences neither of the city nor on an agricultural estate, but when the last of the Tudors died in 1603, London was still very compact.

The preparations for the coronation of King James I/VI were interrupted by plague , which killed thirty thousand people. The Lord Mayor's Show, was revived by order of the king in 1609. The dissolved monastery of the Charterhouse, which had been bought and sold by the courtiers several times, was purchased by Thomas Button for £13,000. The new hospital, chapel, and schoolhouse were begun in 1611.

The general meeting-place of London's populace in the day-time was the nave of Old St Paul's. Merchants conducted business in the aisles, and used the font as a counter upon which to make their payments; lawyers received clients at their particular pillars; and the unemployed looked for work. St Paul's Churchyard was the centre of the book trade and Fleet Street was a centre of public entertainment. Under King James the theatre, which established itself so firmly in the latter years of Elizabeth, grew further in popularity. The performances at the public theatres were complemented by elaborate masques at the royal court and at the inns of court.

During Charles I's reign aristocrats began to inhabit the West End in large numbers. In addition to those who had specific business at court, increasing numbers of country landowners and their families lived in London for part of the year simply for the social life. This was the beginning of the "London season". Lincoln's Inn Fields, was built around 1629. The piazza of Covent Garden, designed by England's first classically trained architect Inigo Jones followed in about 1632. The neighbouring streets were built shortly afterwards, and the names of Henrietta, Charles, James, King and York Streets were given after members of the royal family.

In 1642 the King raised his banner at Nottingham, and during the English Civil War London took the side of the parliament. Indeed some protestors against the king's tyranny were tortured in London before the king left. Initially the king had the upper hand in military terms and in November his forces neared a few miles to the west of London. The City organised a new makeshift army and Charles retreated. Then extensive fortifications were built to protect from a renewed attack by Royalists. This comprised a strong earthen rampart, with bastions and redoubts. It was well beyond City walls and encompassed the whole urban area, including Westminster and Southwark. London was not seriously threatened by royalists again, and the financial resources of the City made a major contribution to parliament winning the war.

The unsanitary and overcrowded City of London has suffered from plague many times over the centuries, but in Britain it is the last major outbreak which is remembered as the "Great Plague" It occurred in 1665 and 1666 and killed around 60,000 people, s one fifth of the people. Samuel Pepys chronicled the epidemic in his diary. he said "I have stayed in the city till above 7400 died in 1 week, and of them about 6000 of the plague, and little noise heard day or night but tolling of bells."

The Great Plague was followed by one which helped to put an end to the plague. On Sunday 2nd of September 1666 the Great Fire of London broke out at 1 o'clock in the morning at a house in Pudding Lane in the southern part of the City. Fanned by an eastern wind, and efforts to arrest it by pulling down houses to make firebreaks were disorganised to begin with. On Tuesday night the wind fell , and on Wednesday the fire slackened. On Thursday it was extinguished, but on the evening the again burst at the Temple. Some houses were at once blown up by gunpowder, thus the fire was finally mastered. A Monument to commemorate the fire: for over a century called it a "popish frenzy", with someone wrongly executed for arson, who was found to be a fantasisit, who was not even in London at the time.

The fire destroyed 60 % of the City, including Old St Paul's Cathedral, 87parish churches, 4livery company halls and the Royal Exchange. However the number of lives lost was small; it is believed to have been 16 at most. Within a few days of the fire 3 plans were presented to the king for rebuilding the city, by Wren, Evelyn and Hooke. Wren proposed to build main thoroughfares north and south, and east and west, to insulate all the churches in conspicuous positions, to form the most public places into large piazzas, to unite the halls of the twelve chief livery companies into one regular square annexed to the Guildhall, and to make a fine quay on the bank of the river from Blackfriars to the Tower of London. Wren wished to build the new streets straight and in 3 standard widths of thirty, sixty and ninety feet. Evelyn's plan differed from Wren's in proposing a street from the church of St Dunstan's in the East to the St Paul's, and having no quay or terrace along the river. These plans were not implemented, and the rebuilt city generally followed the streetplan of the old , and most of it has survived past 2000.

The development of the West End recently begun to accelerate.Nonetheless, the new City was different from the old. Many aristocratic residents never returned, preferring to take new houses in the West End, where fashionable new districts such as St. James's were built close to the main royal residence, which was Whitehall Palace until it was destroyed by fire in the 1690s, and thereafter St. James's Palace. The rural lane of Piccadilly sprouted courtiers mansions such as Burlington House. Thus the separation between the middle class mercantile City of London, and the aristocratic world of the court in Westminster became complete. In the City itself there was a move from wooden buildings to stone and brick construction to reduce the risk of fire. The Act of Parliament "for rebuilding the city of London" stated "building with brick [is] not only more comely and durable, but also more safe against future perils of fire". From then on only doorcases, window-frames and shop fronts were allowed to be wood.

Christopher Wren's plan for a new model London came to nothing, but he was appointed to rebuild the ruined parish churches and replace St Paul's Cathedral. His domed baroque cathedral was the primary symbol of London for at least a century. As city surveyor, Robert Hooke oversaw the reconstruction of the City's houses. The East End, that is the area immediately to the east of the city walls, also became heavily populated in decades after the Fire. London's docks began to extend downstream, attracting working people who worked on the docks themselves and in the processing and distributive trades. These people lived in Whitechapel, Wapping, Stepney and Limehouse, generally in slums.

In winter 1683-84 a frost fair was held on the Thames. The frost, began about 7 weeks before Christmas and continued for 6 weeks after, was the greatest on record. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, led to a large migration on Huguenots to London. They established a silk industry at Spitalfields.

At this time the City of London was becoming the world's leading financial centre, superseding Amsterdam in primacy. The Bank of England founded in 1694, and the British East India Company was expanding influence. Lloyd's of London also began to operate in the late 17th C. In 1700 London handled 80% of England's imports, 69% of exports and 86% of re-exports. Many goods were luxuries from the Americas and Asia like silk, sugar, tea and tobacco. The last figure emphasises London's role as an entrepot: while it had many craftsmen in the 17th century, and would later acquire some large factories, its economic prominence was never based primarily on industry. Instead it was a trading and redistribution centre. Goods were brought to London by England's increasingly dominant merchant navy, to satisfy domestic demand, and for re-export throughout Europe and beyond.

William III cared little for London, the smoke of which gave him asthma, and after the first fire at Whitehall Palace (1691) he purchased Nottingham House, transforming it into Kensington Palace. Kensington was then an insignificant village, but the arrival of the court soon caused it to grow in importance. The palace was rarely favoured by future monarchs, but its construction was another step in the expansion of the bounds of London. During the same reign Greenwich Hospital, then well outside the boundary of London, now comfortably inside, was begun; it was the naval complement to Chelsea Hospital for former soldiers, founded in 1681. During Queen Anne's reign a act was passed authorising the building of 50 churches to serve the greatly increased population living outside boundaries of the City.

The 18th century was a period of rapid growth, reflecting a increasing national population, early stirrings of the Industrial Revolution, and London's role at the centre of the growing British Empire. During the Georgian period London spread beyond its traditional limits at an accelerating pace. New districts as like Mayfair were built for the rich in West End, new bridges over the Thames encouraged an acceleration of development in South London and in the East End, the Port of London expanded downstream from the City.

A phenomenon of 18th C London was the Coffee house that became a popular place to debate ideas. Growing literacy & development of the printing press meant news became widely available. Fleet Street became the centre of the embryonic British press during the century.

18th century London was dogged by crime, the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as professional police. Penalties for crime were harsh, with the death penalty being applied for fairly minor crimes. Public hangings were common, and were popular events. In 1780 London was rocked by the Gordon Riots, a revolt by Protestants against Catholic emancipation led by Lord George Gordon. Severe damage was caused to Catholic churches and homes, and 285 rioters were killed. Only a small period of time after the democracy campaigners of the time, saw upto 11 people killed by state forces for riots opposing royal misuse of power.

During the 19th C the capital transformed into the world's largest city and capital of the world's largest Empire. The population expanded from 1,000,000 in 1800 to 6,700,000 a century later. During this period, itbecame a global, trading, political and financial capital. In this position, it was unrivalled to the latter half of the century, when New York and Paris started to threaten its' dominance. While the city grew wealthy as Britain's holdings expanded, It s also a city of poverty, where millions lived in overcrowded and unsanitary slums. Such as back to back courtyard huts sharing a uncleaned toilet for hundreds. Life for the poor was immortalised by Dickens in novels for example, Oliver Twist. Many districts in the West End were fully developed, and the East End also extended well beyond the eastern fringe of the City. There were now over a few bridges across the Thames, encouraging quicker development of Southern London. In 1829 the PM, Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police Service as a force covering the entire urban area..

The Nineteenth century capital was changed by the coming of the railways. A new network of metropolitan railways allowed for the development of suburbs in neighboring counties from which middle-class and upper class people could commute to the centre. While this spurred the massive outward growth of the city, the growth of greater London also exacerbated the class divide, as the wealthier classes emigrated to the suburbs, leaving the poor to inhabit the inner city areas. The first railway to be built in London was a line from London Bridge to Greenwich, which opened in 1836. Which was soon followed by the opening of great rail termini which linked London to every part of Britain. These included Euston station - 1837, Paddington -1838, Fenchurch Street station -1841, Waterloo - 1848, King's Cross - 1850, and St Pancras station -1863. From the 1850s, the first lines of the London Underground were constructed.

The urbanised area continued to grow rapidly, spreading to Islington, Paddington, Belgravia, Holborn, Finsbury, Shorch, Southwark and Lambeth. Towards the middle of the century, London's antiquated local government system, consisting of ancient parishes and vestries, struggled to cope with the rapid growth in population. In 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was created to provide London with adequate infrastructure to cope with its growth.

One of its's earlist tasks was addressing London's sanitation problems. At the time, raw sewage got pumped straight into the Thames, which reacched the stage of The Great Stink of 1858. Polluted drinking water used, from Britain's largest River, additionally gave disease & epidemics to Londoners. Parliament finally gave consent for the MBW to construct a enormous system of sewers. The engineer Bazalgette was put in charge of building new system. In one of the largest civil engineering projects of the century, he carried out construction of over 2100 km of tunnels and pipes under London to take away sewage & provide clean drinking water. When the London sewerage system was completed, the death toll in London dropped dramatically, and epidemics of cholera and other diseases were curtailed. Bazalgette's system is still in use today.

One of the most famous events of 19th-century London was the Great Exhibition 1851. Held at The Crystal Palace, the fair attracted visitors from across the world and displayed Britain at the height of its Imperial dominance. The Crystal Palace in 1851.As the capital of a massive empire, London became a magnet for immigrants from the colonies and poorer parts of Europe. A large Irish population settled in the city during the Victorian era, with many of the newcomers refugees from the Irish potato famine. At one point, Irish immigrants made up about 20% of Londoners. Indeed till the 18thCentury, the population of London would decline without immigration, as of high death rates, so this incoming was natural for any city. London also became home to a sizable Jewish community, and small communities of Chinese and South Asians settled in the city.

In 1888, the new County of London was established, administered by the London County Council. This was the first elected London-wide administrative body, replacing the earlier Metropolitan Board of Works, which had been made up of appointees. The County of London covered what was then the full extent of the London conurbation, although the conurbation later outgrew boundaries of the county. The county was split in 1899 into metropolitan boroughs.

Many famous buildings and landmarks were constructed during the 19th century including: Trafalgar Square Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament The Royal Albert Hall The Victoria and Albert Museum Tower Bridge

London entered 1900 at the height of its influence as the capital of largest empire in history.

It suffered its first bombing raids during WW1, carried out by zeppelin airships; killing around 700 people, causing terror.

The period between the World Wars saw London's geographical extent growing more quickly than ever before. A prediliction for lower density suburban housing, typically semi-detached, by Londoners seeking a more "rural" lifestyle, superseded Londoners' old predilection for terraced houses. This was facilitated not only by a continuing expansion of the rail network, including the Underground, but also by slowly widening car ownership.

During World War II, London, suffered severe damage, bombed extensively by the far right Luftwaffe as a part of The Blitz. Prior to bombing, hundreds of thousands of children were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the bombing. Civilians took shelter from air raids in underground stations.London suffered severe damage during bombing, the worst hit part being the Docklands area of the East End. By the war's end, nearly 35,000 Londoners had been killed, and around 50,000 seriously injured, tens of thousands of buildings were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless.

Immediately after the war, the 1948 Summer Olympics were held at Wembley Stadium, at a time when the city had barely recovered from war.

Like the rest of the country, London suffered hugem unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The population of London reached a historic even to know, high of 8.6 million in 1939. In the early 20th C, Londoners used coal for heating their homes, producing large amounts of smoke. In combination with climatic conditions this often caused a characteristic smog, and London became known for its typical "London Fog", also known as "Pea Soupers". London was sometimes referred to as "The Smoke" because of this. The Clean Air Act 1956 was introduced following the five-day "pea souper" of 5 December to 9 December 1952, which killed over 4,000 people, mandating the creating of "smokeless zones" where the use of "smokeless" fuels was required (this was at a time when most households still used open fires). The Act was effective.In the immediate postwar years housing was a major issue, due to the large amount of housing which had been destroyed in the war. The authorities decided upon high-rise blocks of flats as the answer to housing shortages. During the 1950s and 1960s the skyline of London altered dramatically as tower blocks were erected, although these later proved unpopular. In a bid to reduce the number of people living in overcrowded housing, a policy was introduced of encouraging people to move into newly built new towns surrounding London.

Starting in the mid 1960s, and partly as a result of the success of such UK musicians as the Beatles and Rolling Stones, London became an epicentre for the world-wide youth culture, exemplified by the Swinging London subculture which made Carnaby Street a household name of youth fashion around the world. London's role as a trendsetter for youth fashion was revived strongly in the 1980s during the New Wave and Punk eras. In the mid-1990s this was revived to some extent with the emergence of the Britpop era.
The outward expansion of London was slowed by the war, and the Green Belt established soon afterwards. Due to outward expansion, in 1965 the old County of London (which by now only covered part of the London conurbation) and the London County Council were abolished, and the much larger area of Greater London was established with a new Greater London Council (GLC) to administer it, along with 32 new London boroughs.

In the early 1980s, due to political disputes between the GLC run by Ken Livingstone and the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher the GLC was abolished in 1986 and all of its powers were relegated to the London boroughs. This left London as the only large metropolis on Earth without a central administration.

An icon of London: in the years after 2000, started. the London Eye.In 2000, the Greater London Authority was established, covering the same area of Greater London as before and representing London as one of the nine regions of England, distinct from the rest of the South East. The London Commuter Belt covers an area much wider but is not normally considered part of London.

From the early 70s till the mid-90s, London was subjected to terror bombs, and some deaths, by the Provisional IRA. With some quite larges riots in the early 1980s, during the depression, added to by probems in race relations, between the police, and new immigratant communities, and lack of jobs.

Greater London's population declined slolwyafter the Second World War, from a high of 8,600,000 in 39 to 6,800,000 in the 80s.This fall slowly reversed in the later 1980s, boosted by certain economic intrests boosted by economic policies, and a economic policy far more for places in this region than the rest of Britain, when before the economic policy of the state, was more for the whole country. The London Plan, published by the Mayor of London in 2004 who won his re-election attempt, estimated the city would reach 8,100,000 by 2016. As reflected in a move to denser, more urban styles, including more tall buildings, and major enhancements to the public transport network. But funding for projects like the Crossrail stayed unninspiring.

By now London was the most multi-cultural city in Europe. Recieving the lions shares of late 20th Century immigration, with large communities still of the old Victorian and British based immigrant London communities. Plus many people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh making some Asian districts. Plus large areas now almost half made up of West Indian and African 1950s too 1960s and smaller later immigrations. Plus large communities of Somalis, and as of the recent wars Albanians. And still today a quite large Jewish community. All these communities have to some extent mixed together with the rest of the population. Added to this most nations in the world have people in London, especially the US, Europe, and Antiopde. And it still serves as the media, political, finincial capital of Britain.

To mark 2000, London hosted the Millennium Dome at Greenwich. Other projects included the largest observation wheel in the world, the "Millennium Wheel" of the London Eye, erected as a temporary structure, but becoming permanent, drawing 4 million visitors yearly.

On July 6, 2005 London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. However, celebrations were cut short the following day when, on July 7, 2005, London was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks. More than 50 were killed and 700 injured in 4 bombings on the Underground and aboard a double decker bus near Russell Square.

Population of London
1AD a few farmsteaders
50: 5 - 10,000
140: 60,000
300: 10 - 20,000
400: under 5000?
500: a few hundred?
700: a few thousand
900: a few thousand
1000: 5 - 10,000
1100: 10,000 - 20,000
1350: 20 - 50,000
1500: 50,000 - 100,000
1600: 100,000 - 200,000
1700: 550,000
1750: 700,000
1801: 1 million (Europe's largest city)
1831: 1.7 million (most populous city in world)
1851: 2.4 million
1891: 5.6 million
1901: 6.5 million
1911: 7.2 million
1921: 7.4 million
1931: 8.1 million
1939: 8.6 million

1951: 8.2 million
1961: 7.9 million

1971: 7.5 million
1981: 6.8 million
1991: 6.8 million
2001: 7.3 million
2003: 7.4 million Indepth history of Londinium

Neteller Site BBC News Feed. AddMe.com, Search Engine Marketing