28 SEPTEMBER

BRITISH SOLDIERS OPEN FIRE ON DUBLIN CROWD AFTER CHILDREN THROW ORANGE PEEL On the evening of Sunday 26 July 1914 three Dubliners were shot dead by British troops on Bachelor Street. They were Mary Duffy, a 50 year old widow, Patrick Quinn, a coal labourer and father of six, and James Brennan, an eighteen year…

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,…

28 CIVILIANS SHOT DEAD IN ATHENS BY BRITISH ARMED NAZI COLLABORATORS Winston Churchill’s legendary qualities of courage and defiance are often celebrated. It is taken for granted that he was motivated primarily by a moral repugnance to Nazism. But if so it’s difficult to understand his decision in 1944 to release around 12,000 Nazi collaborators…

THE FIRST LIVERPOOL SLAVE SHIP SETS SALE [ 3 October 1699 ] On 3 October 1699, the first slave ship set sail from Liverpool. The Liverpool Merchant, under the command of Captain William Webster, sailed down the Mersey headed for the coast of West Africa where she picked up her captive human cargo. BRITISH SPECIAL NIGHT…

BRISTOL CELEBRATES THE DEFEAT OF BRITAIN’S FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY BILL [ 19 April 1791 ] On this day in 1791, the House of Commons, many of its members having close business ties to the trade and the West Indies plantations, overwhelmingly rejected a bill proposed by William Wilberforce to outlaw the slave trade. The margin of…

BRITAIN STRIKES SECRET DEAL WITH AMERICA TO EXPEL THE INHABITANTS OF DIEGO GARCIA. On this day in 1966 a secret plan was agreed between Britain and the United States, by which Washington would cancel $14 million in military debts and in return London undertook to take “administrative measures” required for “resettling the inhabitants” of the…