1. This seafarer arrived back in England with souvenirs from the land he had visited. In his pocket were several black cows and sheep. He set them grazing on a bowling green at Greenwich and made a large sum exhibiting them to persons of quality.
2. "Up early to my lute and a song," wrote this government official in 1662. He then went by water to Greenwich. While dinner was prepared, "Sir William and I walked into the Parke, where the King hath planted trees and made steps in the hill up to the Castle, which is very magnificent."
3. An outbreak of plague had confined Queen Elizabeth I to Greenwich. This adventurer, whose ambition was to be the English Columbus, had taken instruction in navigation from Dr Dee, and now set off on an expedition to the New World. He sailed to Greenwich Palace and, to attract the queen's attention, let off a volley of guns. She waved from the window.
4. "Hark, hark the lark, no it is not a lark." It is this character. "He has been termed lethargic and fat. It is said of him that He would rather live in Greenwich or Great Neck than in Medicine Hat."
5. This lady had planned to marry money. Now she loved a man who apparently had none. She and Pa took a steamboat to Greenwich, where she married her love, who had taken the name Rokesmith. After a walk in Greenwich Park, all enjoyed a dinner "seasoned with bliss". She was unaware of her husband's true identity and wealth.
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6. This anarchist in the pay of a foreign embassy was ordered to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory. He arranged for his halfwitted brother-in-law to do the deed. But Stevie stumbled and was blown to pieces.
7. After King Charles established the Observatory, a reward was offered to the man who perfected the art of navigation by solving the Longitude Problem. This Yorkshire watchmaker worked for 40 years to perfect a sea-clock, and built five revolutionary pocket watches.
8. At the 1836 Greenwich Easter Fair, he reported, the chief amusement was "to drag young ladies up the steep hill to the Observatory, then drag them down at top speed. This greatly disarranged their curls and bonnet-caps, with much edification of onlookers from below".