28 MAY

IRAQI HOTEL RECEPTIONIST TORTURED TO DEATH BY BRITISH TROOPS IN BASRA 15 September 2003 – An Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Mousa was kicked, beaten and tortured to death by British troops in Basra.  He was one in a group of ten innocent Iraqi civilians who were subjected to appalling brutality. Their agony was witnessed by…

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…

BRITISH CRUSH OPPOSITION TO DUTCH COLONIAL RULE IN SURABAYA, KILLING HUNDREDS, INCLUDING MANY CIVILIANS. 10 November 1945 – British army launched a military assault on the Indonesian city of Surabaya where nationalist opposition groups refused to submit to Dutch colonial rule. Many hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed, including many civilians, as British and Indian soldiers,…

BRITISH TROOPS SACK WASHINGTON DC On this day in 1814, British troops burned down much of Washington D.C., including the White House, the Capitol, the bridge over the Potomac, the United States Treasury and other government  and private properties. The resulting inferno, accelerated by the invaluable collection of books in the heavily timbered Library of…