Diamonds are forever, forever, forever …

Stars can be seen treading the red carpet at Leicester Square’s film premiers. The Square is the heart of the West End entertainment district like Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood,  it is surrounded by floor-mounted plaques with film stars names and cast handprints.

But Leicester Square hasn’t t always been a glamorous location and in1979, when rubbish collectors went on strike, it was used as an overflow dump, earning it the nickname of ‘Fester Square’.

What’s in a name?

London has gone through a variety of names during its history. At the time of the Roman Invasion, it was called Londinium. In Saxon times, it became known as Lundenwic. And during the time of Alfred the Great, the city was known as Lundenburg.

London

London is the biggest city in Western Europe. People have lived here for more than 5,000 years, but instead of a city, there used to be forests and marshes. Legend says that the city was founded not by the Romans of the 1st century AD, but by Brutus the Trojan, around 1070 BC, about 1,000 years before the Roman invasion. Brutus was the great-grandson of Aeneas, a Trojan prince and one of the few survivors after the Greeks destroyed Troy.

L is for London - Pigeon