On This Day:  August 1

1831 -- A new­ly re­built Lon­don Bridge opens, re­plac­ing the aged and de­crepit me­dieval struc­ture. The old bridge's fea­ture of pikes for the dis­play of de­cap­i­tat­ed heads was not re­tained, to the dis­ap­point­ment of some.