17 FEBRUARY

BORIS JOHNSON ADMITS UK NOT OPPOSED TO ILLEGAL DRONE STRIKES. Writing for The Spectator on 25 July 2018, the recently resigned British foreign secretary Boris Johnson implied that the government would not hesitate in authorizing intelligence sharing to enable a drone strike assassination of targets, who while not necessarily posing any imminent threat to life,…

BRITISH OFFICER – “I NEVER SAW SUCH BUTCHERY AND MURDER.” [ 21 February 1849 ] On 21 February 1849, during the Second Anglo-Sikh War, British troops under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Hugh Gough gave no quarter to Sikh soldiers fleeing the battlefield of Gujrat. BRITISH TROOPS IN CAIRO SHOOT DEAD TWENTY “RIOTERS” WITH…

‘HEADS (OF BLACKS) FIXED ON POLES IN VARIOUS PARTS’ OF DEMERARA [ 18 December 1823 ] Following a mostly non-violent slave insurrection in the British colony of Demerara (now Guyana) in August 1823, in which the plantation owners had been locked into their homes, Governor Major General John Murray imposed a savage crackdown,  shooting dead…

BRITISH “BLACK AND TANS” AUXILIARY POLICE SACK THE CITY OF CORK. During a few hours of indiscriminate arson and looting, on the evening of Saturday 11 December 1920, the British Black and Tans auxiliary police force burned down three hundred homes and forty business premises in the city of Cork where the vast majority of…

BRITISH TROOPS BURN DOWN PEKING’S SUMMER PALACE [ 18 October 1860 ] On this day in 1860 British troops set fire to one of the world’s greatest collections of art work and treasure, the legendary Summer Palace in Peking, also known as the Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanming Yuan). Burning all the buildings which stretched…

REDCOATS SHOOT DEAD FIVE BOSTONIANS WHO HAD BEEN HURLING SNOWBALLS [ 5 March 1770 ] The anniversary is commemorated every year with an annual reenactment in Boston, Massachusetts, but is virtually forgotten in Britain. CABINET ‘MAD KEEN TO LAND BRITISH TROOPS SOMEWHERE’ [ 5 March 1956 ] On 5 March 1956, ministers were briefed at number…