30 APRIL

BATTLE OF PLASSEY IS FOLLOWED BY THE LOOTING OF BENGAL On 23 June 1757, Colonel Robert Clive, commanding 3,000 troops of Britain’s East India Company, defeated Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, at the Battle of Plassey, partly by persuading Mir Jafar, the Nawab’s senior military commander to defect. Please feel welcome to post comments below. …

[ 10 February 1846 ] On 10 February 1846, British troops slaughtered thousands of Sikhs attempting to flee the Battle of Sobraon in the Punjab. After a fierce two hour engagement, Redcoat infantry and cavalry, under the command of Major-General Sir Hugh Gough, concentrated their attack on the surviving soldiers, who were hemmed into a…

REPORT RECOMMENDS TRIAL WITHOUT JURY FOR IRISH TERROR SUSPECTS On 20 December 1972 a parliamentary commission on terrorism headed by Lord Diplock recommended that a suspect’s ancient right to trial by jury, enshrined in British law by Magna Carta, be abandoned for Irish terror suspects.(1) This recommendation became law the following year in the Emergency…

BRITISH CLUSTER BOMBS KILL 38 AND INJURE 156 IRAQI CIVILIANS 31 March 2003 – British artillery fired cluster munitions during operations in the Iraqi city of Hillah, 100 km south of Baghdad. According to Human Rights Watch – “In the neighborhood of Nadir, a slum on the south side of the city, every household Human…

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PINOCHET CAN’T BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT HE DID AS HEAD OF STATE On this day in 1998, Britain’s High Court cleared the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, responsible for the disappearance, torture and murder of thousands, on the bizarre grounds that he was head of state when he committed the crimes. Labour MP Tony Benn noted…