13 June 1965 – Tony Benn comments in his diary regarding the situation in Vietnam that “the Americans are now deciding to invade in full strength and we are left in the embarrassing position of appearing to support them.”
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY HERALD APOLOGIZES FOR INSULTING HITLER Cartoon by Will Dyson (1880-1938) in the Daily Herald, 1 December 1937, p. 10 [ 1 December 1937 ] The left leaning Daily Herald, was arguably the most progressive of Britain’s mainstream newspapers in the thirties. Unlike The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, it would…
CABINET BACKS UK’S SUPPORT FOR AMERICAN BOMBING OF NORTH VIETNAM [ 3 February 1966 ] In the Cabinet minutes, it’s described as ‘considerable disquiet’ and in Transport Minister Barbara Castle’s diaries as ‘the most spirited wrangle yet.’ Please feel welcome to post comments below. If you have any questions please email alisdare@gmail.com © 2020 Alisdare Hickson All…
BRITISH ARMY AGREES TO ALLOW PROTESTANT PARAMILITARIES TO PATROL WITH THEM. 3 July 1072 – After negotiations between the Ulster Defence Associaton, with its known links to Loyalist terrorism, the British army agreed to allow Protestant paramiliataries armed with batons and clubs to patrol alongside them in the mixed Catholic-Protestant neighbourhood around March Street and…
BOBBY SANDS MP DIES AFTER 66 DAYS ON HUNGER STRIKE 5 May 1981 – The Sinn Fein MP and Irish Republican prisoner Bobby Sands died after 66 days of his hunger strike at the H-Block Prison hospital at Long Kesh. At the age of ten Sands and his family had been forced to leave their…
ROUTINE USE OF TORTURE IN ULSTER EXPOSED [ 17 October 1971 ] On this day in 1971, The Sunday Times published a front page article entitled “How Ulster Internees are Made to Talk,” in which former detainee Pat Shivers recounted how, over a period of several days, he was hooded and forced into agonizing stress…
THE LORD MAYOR OF CORK DIES FROM HIS HUNGER STRIKE IN BRIXTON PRISON Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, died at 5.40 am on Monday 25 October 1920 on the seventy fourth day of his hunger strike at Brixton prison. His biographer, Francis Costello, remarked that the MacSwiney’s “solitary protest would be seen, in the…
