14 October 1964 On 14 October 1964, in his final dispatch as Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir Colin Crowe declared that the Saudi regime was ‘about as satisfactory as any we could expect’ as it was ‘friendly to the West and strongly anti-communist.’ In numerous reports since he had been appointed ambassador in April…
10 May 1963 Today in 1963, Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home advised Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, that it was in Britain’s interest ‘that the present regime (in Saudi Arabia) should survive and that its principal prop should be efficient.’1 The ‘prop’ he was referring to was the National Guard, commanded by the King Saud’s brother, Prince Faisal. It…
COLONIAL TROOPS SLAUGHTER HUNDREDS IN NATAL [ 14 December 1873 ] On 14 December 1873, John Colenso, the Bishop of Natal, wrote a letter to Frederick Chesson, the secretary of the London Aborigines Protection Society. He informed him that colonial troops had killed ‘hundreds of (Hlubi) men’ and that ‘hundreds of women and children’ had…
LORD MILNER ON HIGH DEATH RATE IN BRITISH CONCENTRATION CAMPS [ 4 December 1901 ] Lord Milner, Britain’s High Commissioner for Southern Africa, was charged with sorting out the concentration camps for civilian detainees during the Second South African Boer War, after the scandal of their inhumane conditions had been exposed in the press. In…
CITY OF LONDON AUCTION – RUM, BRANDY AND ‘ONE NEGRO BOY’ [ 4 October 1743 ] Today in 1743, a fairly routine sale took place at the Marine Coffee-House in Birchin Lane in the City of London, which comprised, according to an announcement placed in the Daily Advertiser ‘the following goods, Viz. 36 hogsheads of…
CHURCHILL SUGGESTS THREATENING NUCLEAR ATTACKS ON RUSSIAN CITIES [ 23 July 1945 ] Prime Minister Winston Churchill had just been informed of the first successful American testing of an atomic bomb in New Mexico when on 23 July 1945, while having lunch with his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden and three leading Chiefs of Staff, he…
TOWN DEEMED ‘COWARDLY’ PUNISHED WITH SHARP RICE RATION CUT AND CURFEW [ 26 March 1952 ] On 26 March 1952, General Walter Templer, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, informed three hundred leading members of the Malayan, Chinese and Indian communities of Tanjong Malim that the entire town’s population of five thousand was to be…
