From 1235 until 1835, the monarch’s personal zoo was kept at the Tower, and it included many exotic animals given as presents by other monarchs, including polar bears, leopards and elephants.
To mark the 50th birthday of the Royal Air Force in 1968, Flight Lt. Allan Pollock flew his Hawker jet under the walkway of Tower Bridge. This unauthorised stunt won him a court martial.
The square here was laid out by Inigo Jones in 1630, on land once used by the monks of Westminster Abbey as a garden, but confiscated by Henry VIII during the Reformation.
