14 July 1971 On 14 July 1971, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was the guest of honour at a state banquet with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Newspaper coverage was mostly favourable. An editorial in the Daily Telegraph declared that Amin was ‘a staunch friend of Britain.’1 The Birmingham Daily Post reported that ‘this is President…
5 February 1971 On 5th February 1971, on the day of Major General Idi Amin’s swearing in as president, following a military coup twelve days earlier, Britain was one of the first countries in the world to formally recognize his new government. Just five days earlier, a Foreign Office official had remarked, in an internal…
30 January 1892 On 30 January 1892, a force of Sudanese and Zanzibari mercenaries of the British Imperial East African Company, under the command of Captain W. H. Williams, attacked the remnants of King Mwanga’s followers, who along with their chief had been driven from the Bugandan capital of Mengo, and had taken refuge on…
BRITISH ARMY KILLS FIFTY EGYPTIAN POLICE OFFICERS [ 25 January 1952 ] By January 1952, the British Army, which was still stationed in Egypt’s Suez Canal Zone, was growing increasingly frustrated by attacks on its positions by small groups of Egyptian guerrilla fighters, who were determined to force their former colonial masters to evacuate. MI6…
