15 JANUARY

BRITAIN RECOGNIZES IDI AMIN FOLLOWING COUP IN UGANDA On 5th February 1971, on the day of Major General Idi Amin’s swearing in as president, following a military coup twelve days earlier, Britain was one of the first countries in the world to formally recognize his new government. Please feel welcome to post comments below.  If…

MINISTER – PUBLIC BACKING FOR SHOOTING PRISONERS WOULD BE “AWKWARD” [ 21 June 1900 ] On this day in 1900, opposition was voiced in the British cabinet to General’s kitchener’s ruthless war against Boer insurgents in South Africa, including the destruction of entire villages and the shooting of prisoners on sight. However, it was not…

BRITISH TROOPS COMMENCE THE LOOTING AND DESTRUCTION OF BEIJING’S SUMMER PALACE [ 7 Ocobter 1860 ] On this day in 1860, British officers joined French troops in looting Peking’s legendary Summer Palace.  The complex might however have been more accurately described as palaces, as there were over two hundred summer houses and pavilions within eighty…

ROYAL NAVY DESTROYS LAGOS – ‘AN IMMENSE NUMBER OF NATIVES BEING KILLED’ [ 26 December 1851 ] On 26 December 1851, British naval vessels began a three day bombardment of the coastal town of Lagos on the west coast of Africa, reducing it to rubble, at a cost, to quote a British press report, of ‘an…

BRITISH ARMOURED CARS SPRAY TEL AVIV’S STREETS WITH BULLETS KILLING FIVE. [ 31 July 1947 ] On this day in 1947, “seven (British) armoured cars roared through the main street of the all-Jewish city of Tel-Aviv… with machine guns firing into shops and passing traffic,” killing at least five and wounding fifteen others.[1]  This indiscriminate…