In London, History greets you at every turn. Literally. There are monumental locations galore: Westminster Abbey, in which a myriad of historical figures are buried; the Banqueting House, at which Charles I was beheaded; the British Library, housing manuscripts written by Dickens, Milton, Darwin, and Handel; Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms; the Tower of London, where people of prominence like Anne Boleyn and the future Queen Elizabeth I were imprisoned; the list goes on and on. However, London does not only encapsulate this very public history. Scattered around the metropolis are hundreds of round, blue or green plaques identifying the former homes of London’s most prolific people. I found that these signs always took me by surprise. Without intending to do so, I so often stumbled across the very residences of authors, politicians, and thinkers who publicly changed the world while privately embracing London as their home. They once walked the streets of the city that I, too, grew to know as a home.