19 MARCH

THE KIRUARA MASSACRE 23 November 1952 – In the marketplace of the Kenyan village of Kiruara, a young man claimed to have a vision of the end of British colonial rule and his preaching attracted a crowd of several hundred locals.  Several white police officers then arrived leading a unit of black policemen and loyalist…

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…

MI6 OVERTHROW MOSSADEGH – THE POPULAR MODERATE PRIME MINISTER OF IRAN. [ 19 August 1953 ] (Shorter version) On this day in 1953 British intelligence, helped by the CIA, staged a coup to oust Muhammad Mossadegh, the moderate nationalist prime minister of Iran, who had been a firm believer in liberal values, democracy and the…

MACMILLAN PRAISES DICTATOR DIEM 7 May 1962 – Prime Minister Harold Macmillan wrote a personal letter to President Ngô Dình Diệm, the dictator of South Vietnam, lauding his murderous regime. “We have viewed with admiration the way in which your government and people have resisted” attempts to “overthrow the freely established regime in South Vietnam,”…

  BRITISH COMPANY HELPS EQUIP SADDAM HUSSEIN’S MILITARY. 17th July 1990 – The British government approves exports of machine tools by Matrix Churchill to Iraq, just two weeks prior to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and knowing that they would be used to manufacture shells and missiles.