18 DECEMBER

AS SLAVE SHIP DOCKS AT ST. KITTS, 33 SLAVES LEAP TO THEIR DEATHS [ 14 March 1737 ] Today in 1737, the Prince of Orange, a small 80 ton Bristol registered vessel crammed with 251 African slaves, arrived at St. Kitts in the West Indies. BRITISH ARMS PLAY VITAL ROLE IN CRUSHING BAHRAIN DEMOCRACY PROTESTS…

EARL GREY DESCRIBES IRELAND AS ‘OUR DISGRACE’ [ 23 March 1846 ] Earl Grey, addressing the House of Lords on 23 March 1846, as the Irish famine began to take thousands of lives, declared that ‘Ireland is the one weak place in the fabric of British power, Ireland is the one deep ( and I…

BURNING AND INDISCRIMINATE MURDER AT ISTALIF [29 September 1842 ] On this day in 1842, a retribution expedition under the command of Major General McCaskill entered the Afghan town of Istalif, forty miles north of Kabul. It has been one of the first towns to participate in an anti-British insurgency which had ultimately led to…

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COLONIAL SECRETARY WARNS AGAINST ‘IMMORAL RELATIONS WITH NATIVE WOMEN’ [ 11 January 1909 ] On 11 January 1909 Lord Crewe, Secretary of State for the Colonies, issued his ‘immoral relations’ memorandum. It cautioned all members of the Colonial Service of ‘the grave injury to good administration’ and ‘the disgrace and official ruin which will certainly…

CHURCHILL URGES POISON GAS ATTACKS ON GERMAN CITIES Writing a memo to General Sir Hastings Ismay on 6 July 1944, Winston Churchill urged the Chiefs of Staff to urgently consider the use of poison gas against German towns and cities. A YEMENI CIVIL SERVANT’S BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH BRITAIN’S GUANTANAMO. At about 2 am on 6…