5 JULY

BRITAIN ENDS THE RIGHT OF SUSPECTS TO REMAIN SILENT. [ 20 October 1988 ] On this day in 1988  Britain ended the right of suspects to remain silent as part of its campaign against the IRA. This affected both their right to remain silent during interrogation by police and also when questioned in court.  As…

MILITARY COURTS ALLOWED TO ORDER THE FLOGGING OF CHILDREN [ 17 February 1939 ] On 17 February 1939, the British run mandate government in Palestine introduced a law allowing military courts to order the whipping of children ‘with a light rod or cane or birch,’ of up to twenty four strokes. CALLAGHAN – ‘I WON’T…

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…

BRITISH AND FRENCH IN SECRET AGREEMENT TO DIVIDE THE MIDDLE EAST [ 3 January 1916 ] Today in 1916, during the First World War, a line was drawn on the map from Acre on the coast of Palestine to Kirkuk in northern Iraq, dividing much of the Middle East into what were planned as post-war…

MARTIAL LAW IN CEYLON, HUNDREDS SHOT ON SIGHT, THOUSANDS ARRESTED [ 2 June 1915 ] On 2 June 1915, Sir Robert Chalmers, the governor of Ceylon, on the pretext that ethnic rioting between Muslims and Sinhalese Buddhists had been provoked by German agents, declared martial law. There was, however, no evidence to suggest any German…

LORD ELGIN’S NOTES ON “LIVING AMONG INFERIOR RACES” [ 21 August 1857 ] On this day in 1857 Lord Elgin makes some observations in his diary about British attitudes to Indians in the Raj – “It is a terrible business, however, this living among inferior races… There are some three or four hundred servants in…