12 MAY

BRITISH TROOPS SACK WASHINGTON DC On this day in 1814, British troops burned down much of Washington D.C., including the White House, the Capitol, the bridge over the Potomac, the United States Treasury and other government  and private properties. The resulting inferno, accelerated by the invaluable collection of books in the heavily timbered Library of…

28 CIVILIANS SHOT DEAD IN ATHENS BY BRITISH ARMED NAZI COLLABORATORS Winston Churchill’s legendary qualities of courage and defiance are often celebrated. It is taken for granted that he was motivated primarily by a moral repugnance to Nazism. But if so it’s difficult to understand his decision in 1944 to release around 12,000 Nazi collaborators…

FIRST OF 306 FIRST WORLD WAR EXECUTIONS FOR DESERTION. [ 8 September 1914 ] [ relevance ? ] On this day in 1914, the First World War was barely a month old and the first British soldier to be found guilty of desertion was executed. Thomas Highgate was just 19 years old when he was…

MI6 WARNS OF UDA TERROR BUT THE UK REFUSES TO PROSCRIBE THE ORGANISATION. On 12 February, 1981, David Wyatt of MI6 warned the Northern Ireland permanent secretary that “UDA/UFF (loyalist) gunmen, with the full blessing of Tyrie (head of the Ulster Defence Association), are going to continue murdering identified Republicans.” Please feel welcome to post…

MASS EXECUTION OF AFGHANS TO “CELEBRATE” THE BRITISH CAPTURE OF KABUL [ 12 October 1879 ] On this day in 1879 General Roberts led a British army into Kabul, declaring martial law and offering substantial financial rewards for the handing over of all those who were known to have taken up arms against the British….

BRITISH GENERAL – ‘MY WISH WAS TO EXCITE TERROR’ [ 27 May 1798 ] On 27 May 1798, Major General John Moore, having been given orders to quell any sign of anti-British rebellion in the County of Cork in Ireland, reflected in his diary on his frustration over the reluctance of the locals to collaborate. …