21 APRIL

WORRIES ABOUT THE WRONG SORT OF SPIN OVER GUANTANAMO. Writing in his diary on 16 January 2002, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications, expressed his deep concern over the potential political fallout from a recent statement by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld which had attracted unwelcome media attention. Please feel welcome to post comments…

BRITISH OPIUM EXPORTS TO CHINA SOAR. [ 31 December 1879 ] By this day in 1879, 105,000 chests of opium had been exported by Britain to China during the year.  Each chest contained 63 kg of opium. The volume of trade in the lethal drug had increased exponentially from 4,000 chests at the start of the…

THE LORD MAYOR OF CORK DIES ON HUNGER STRIKE IN BRIXTON PRISON [25 October 1920 ] Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, died at 5.40 am on Monday 25 October 1920 on the seventy fourth day of his hunger strike at Brixton prison.  His biographer, Francis Costello, remarked that the MacSwiney’s ‘solitary protest would…

SIX CIVILIANS SHOT DEAD BY BRITISH TROOPS IN WEST BELFAST [ 9 August 1971 ] On this day in 1971, six civilians varying in age from 19 to 50 years, including Father Hugh Mullan, a Catholic priest who was trying to help a wounded man and Joan Connolly, a 45 year old grandmother, were shot…

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FORTY INDIAN MUTINEERS BLOWN FROM GUNS [ 10 June 1857 ] On this day in 1857, Herbert Edwardes, the British political officer at Peshawar, ordered forty captured Indian mutineers to be blown from guns, a method of execution in which the victim was tied to the mouth of a cannon which was then fired. As…