THE ANGEL OTD 1768. Rest house kept by monks of Bermondsey Priory. Here James Cook plans his first voyage: observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti. Opens admiralty sealed orders: discover the Great Southern Continent. Terra Australis Incognita. Joseph Banks observes a kangaroo.

VAUXHALL BRIDGE OPENS OTD 1906. By Alexander Binnie & Maurice Fitzmaurice, who also built Rotherhithe and Blackwall Tunnels. On each pier bronze statues celebrate Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering & Pottery. The robes must have been a nuisance digging and at potter's wheel.

GREAT HALL, EUSTON STATION OPENS OTD 1849. Model for Grand Central Station, New York. We still mourn Euston Arch, which was actually a Temple or Propylaeum. Knocked down 1962 despite questions in the House. First ever Inter City station. Largest span of any building in the world.

NATIONAL THEATRE OPENS OLD VIC 1963 AND SOUTH BANK 1977.  ‘I gasped with delight at the cube of your theatre in the pale blue sky and a glimpse of St. Paul's to the south’ (Sir John Betjeman).

PADDINGTON STATION OPENS OTD 1854 for God's Wonderful Railway. Nave, two aisles and transept where the station master’s office is perched like a pulpit. Here Victorians might worship the great god progress at the altar of engineering in a railway cathedral to the glory of GWR...

Christopher Marlowe playwright and spy died OTD 1593. Stabbed in Deptford, buried St Nicholas, Deptford Green. But Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey has a ? after the date. Faked by the queen's spymaster to avoid trial? Elizabethan drama or ‘You Only Live Twice’?

HORNIMAN MUSEUM GARDENS OPEN OTD 1895 ‘Foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman’: Edward Gibbon. ‘I will bring the world to Forest Hill’: Frederick John Horniman, tea trader & philanthropist. 'Either the collection goes or we do’: Rebekah Emslie, his wife.

THOMAS HARDY BORN OTD 1840.  His father carved in stone, he wrote in verse. His Wessex pastoral is everywhere threatened by machines and righteous morality. His ‘Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented’  was censored and sold in brown paper bags - and burned.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN IN ENGINEERING DAY INWED. Hedy Lamarr, electrical and aerospace engineer and ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’. Star of Samson & Delilah. Invented frequency hopping, the basis of wifi and communications systems.

GREENWICH FOOT TUNNEL OPENS OTD 1902. Dante's Hell is a vast cavern. Casanova's ‘Icosaméron’ an underground utopia peopled by hermaphrodite dwarfs. Tarzan's Pellucidar, Alice’s Wonderland and Dorothy’s Oz are underground. We emerge blinking with relief.

SAVOY HOTEL OPENED OTD 1889. Palace for John of Gaunt, Pyre for Peasants' Revolt, Hospital for Henry VII, Opera House for Gilbert & Sullivan. Built on 'Pirates' ticket receipts . Electric lights, electric lifts, lavish rooms, ensuite bathrooms, Gondola parties, Cabinet lunches.

ALBERT BRIDGE OPENS OTD 1873. Bit of a dog’s breakfast. Cable-stayed, suspension AND beam bridge. Diana Dors' favourite in pink, blue & green. Nicknamed  ‘The Trembling Lady’ - Victorian Wobbly Bridge. Plans for a park - Garden Bridge. Deck damaged by pets - bit of a Dog Incident

ALFRED SALTER LOCAL HERO DIED 1945 OTD ‘Settlement firebrand – militant Republican, militant Socialist, militant Agnostic, militant Teetotaller, militant Pacifist.’ Sculpture installation ‘Dr Salter’s Daydream’ with Ada his wife. River, Park and health for local people.

MICHAEL FARADAY, LOCAL HERO DIED OTD 1867. 'The diamond burned with a scarlet light, inclining to purple for about four minutes’. Southwark boy, brilliant speaker, diamond geezer. Built first electric motor. Faraday Monument at Elephant & Castle is a transformer.

CANARY WHARF OTD 1991. Today One Canada Square by César Pelli opened on the Isle Of Dogs. Distinctive lighted pyramid roof a beacon for regeneration of the old Docklands. Largest urban regeneration project in Europe. And today, on International Dog Day, a very big lamp post.

BRUNEL’S FIRST AND LAST BRIDGE OTD 1831 work began on Clifton Bridge 'my Egyptian thing'. Sphinxes, hieroglyph towers, 700 foot span high above the River Avon. Very Ozymandias. Brunel was 25yrs old but did not live to see it. Completed 1864 on his death, as a tribute

MICHAEL FARADAY TRANSFORMS THE WORLD 1831. Savoy Place the Professor holds ring magnet and two coils wire. Simple transformer. Royal Institution, playful speaker, he fills bubbles with coloured gas. One lecturer did a runner! So like all speakers I was locked in till the start.

OTD 19 October 1745 death of Jonathan Swift,author of #GulliversTravels His fictional hero Lemuel Gulliver lived in Redriff (#rotherhithe) & returned here after travels to strange & unusual lands “Before he quitted Redriff,he left the custody of the following papers in my hands"

Wednesday 29 Oct 7.15 for 7.30pm #HalloweenSpecial Crime historian Dr Angela Buckley's talk for 📜📚Rotherhithe & Bermondsey History Society 📚📜 "The #Bermondsey Murder" What happened to dock worker Patrick O'Connor in August 1849? 📌Norwegian Church;St Olav's Square;#SE16 7JB Members Free;Guests£3 Dr Angela Buckley 🔎

Wednesday 25 February 7.15 for 7.30pm 📜📚Rotherhithe & Bermondsey History Society 📚📜 LGBT History Month Special: Fighting Proud Talk by Stephen Bourne #Southwark historian Stephen's book 'Fighting Proud' tells the story of gay servicemen who bravely fought for king & country 📌Norwegian Church Albion St #SE16 7JB