16 APRIL

WOMEN ACQUITTED OF DAMAGING AIRCRAFT ON GROUNDS OF PREVENTING A GREATER CRIME. [ 30 July 1996 ] On this day in 1996, four women were acquitted by a Liverpool court of causing £1.5 million damage to Hawk ground attack aircraft which were to be sold to Indonesia, then under the brutal grip of the Suharto…

GENERAL’S REQUEST TO DEPORT BOER WOMEN TO REMOTE ISLAND IMPRACTICAL. On 20 July 1901 the British Secretary of State for War, St. John Brodrick wrote to General Kitchener, the Chief of Staff of British forces in South Africa, commenting on his suggestions for the seizure of Boer property and the permanent banishment of the families…

CHURCHILL “STRONGLY IN FAVOUR OF USING POISONED GAS AGAINST UNCIVILISED TRIBES.” On 12 May 1919 Winston Churchill, now widely acknowledged to be among the most admired Britons in history, wrote a memo in his newly appointed position as Secretary of State for Air regarding the best possible British military response to an anti-British insurgency in…

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BAPTIST DEACON SAMUEL SHARPE HUNG FOR LEADING JAMAICAN SLAVE STRIKE 23 May 1832 – The Jamaican Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe was hung by the British for leading a slave strike. He was the last of 326 slaves to be executed for the dangerous precedent of refusing to follow orders by not returning to work after…