2 JANUARY

BRITISH ARMY AGREES TO ALLOW PROTESTANT PARAMILITARIES TO PATROL WITH THEM. 3 July 1072 – After negotiations between the Ulster Defence Associaton, with its known links to Loyalist terrorism, the British army agreed to allow Protestant paramiliataries armed with batons and clubs to patrol alongside them in the mixed Catholic-Protestant neighbourhood around March Street and…

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…

BRITISH ARMY SHELL TEMPLE IN SAIGON, KILLING ONE HUNDRED [ 13 October 1945 ] On this day in 1945, 5he British occupying forces in Saigon shelled a “strongly defended (Buddhist) pagoda” occupied by Viet Minh and other groups opposed to French colonial rule, killing one hundred. They also summarily executed two Japanese army officers who…

BARELY A RAZED EYEBROW AFTER NAZI SALUTE AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE. There was almost no diplomatic, media or public criticism when Hitler’s ambassador, Joachim von Ribbentrop, greeted King George VI at Buckingham Palace, on 4 February 1937, with a Nazi salute. BRITISH SUBMARINE SECONDS AWAY FROM A NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE. In the early hours of 4th February…

BRITISH BOMBARD CANTON TO ENSURE SAFE PASSAGE FOR THE OPIUM TRADE [ 28 December 1857 ] On this day, twenty five British and French gunboats commenced a bombardment of the Chinese port city of Canton, after a British flagged ship had been detained by local officials. Although the registration of the ship had lapsed, Britain…

THE TELEGRAPH BACKS HITLER’S MURDEROUS CRACKDOWN ON HIS POLITICAL OPPONENTS. [ 1 March 1933 ] The burning down of the German Reichstag (parliament) on the night of 27 February 1933 was blamed on ‘red terror.’ The arson may well have been instigated by the Nazis, but the incident gave Hitler the opportunity he hungered for…