The History of the London Tube in 1 Minute

The world's first underground railway opened in January 1863. The first gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives ran between Paddington and Farringdon in London. Although the journey was dirty and unpleasant the cut in journey times proved hugely popular and soon new stations and lines began to be added to the London Underground. The London Underground now serves 270 stations and has 250 miles of track.

You can view an animation of the growth of the London Underground over the last 151 years on this CarrtoDB map. London's Rail System in 60 seconds is an animated map which shows when all of London's rail and underground stations were first opened.

The map's creator has also published a very good tutorial on how to create your own animated map using CartoDB's Torque library. How to Make an Animated Map with CartoDB and Torque takes you through the steps of creating an animated map, from how to format your data to uploading the data & animating it with CartoDB and Torque.