1British Invasion of Tibet
In 1904, when the British invaded Tibet, Tibetan forces opposed them with matchlock rifles whereas the British had machine guns. One of the battles ended with 12 injured British soldiers and somewhere between 600 and 700 dead Tibetans.
2. As part of the Briggs Plan, the military forces of the British Empire interned 10% of Malaysia's population in an attempt to cut off support for guerillas during the Anti-British National Liberation War.
3. In 1603, the Spanish and Japanese massacred an estimated 20,000 Chinese in the Philippines during the Sangley Rebellion.
4. In 1937, two men in the Italian occupied Ethiopia tried to kill the Italian Viceroy. In response, the Italian army and Italian civilians went on a killing spree, burning down houses, and killing an estimated 20% of the population of Addis Ababa including sympathetic Ethiopians. Estimates of death range from 19,200 to 30,000 Ethiopian. Italy still downplays the massacre.
5. The Benin Walls were four times longer than the Great Wall of China and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They were ravaged by the British in 1897 during what has come to be called the Punitive expedition.
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6Chapati Movement
In 1857, the British rulers panicked when they found a network of Indians passing Chapatis (flatbread) from village to village for no reason. The 'Chapati Movement' was credited when rebellion broke out later that year. Historians now say that the events were completely unrelated.
7. The 1947 British partition of India was driven by fear of civil war. Yet, in haste, borders drawn by the English colonial rulers went unannounced for days after independence. As a result, Hindus didn't know if they would wake up one day in Pakistan, or Muslims in India. 15 million people were displaced and over a million died in the chaos.
8. The locals of the Yap islands use large donut shaped stones weighing up to 4 tons as currency. Rather than exchange them, they just note who the owner is. When Germany colonized the island, they imposed fines on the Yapese by marking these stones with paint indicating that they belonged to Germany. The islanders who "lost their fortunes" quickly acquiesced.
9. Portuguese and Spanish empires were once so powerful that in 1529 they signed the Treaty of Tordesillas to split the world into two parts. The border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea was indirectly set by the Treaty of Zaragoza.
10. In 1944, the French Army murdered dozens of its own West African black troops for demanding fair pay and better living conditions. The victims of the Thiaroye Massacre were both volunteers and conscripts of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais units of the French army fighting in World War 2.
11Mau Mau Uprising
Anywhere between 320,000 to 450,000 Kenyans were held in British Concentration Camps, with widespread Human rights abuse occurring in them, during the Mau Mau Uprising between 1952 and 1960. Various tribes in Kenya came together to fight against the white European colonist-settlers in Kenya during this uprising.
12. Right after the abolition of slavery by Britain, half a million "Indentured Servants" were transported by the English from India to make them work in the Caribbean plantations. By 1917, the total number of these "servants" in the Caribbean had reached 3-4 million.
13. Salt taxes made up a significant percentage of British tax revenue from India, while also driving up prices and thus contributing to high rates of salt deficiency across India. This exacerbated the poor health of many Indians during the colonial period. In the 1930s, Gandhi organized mass protests against salt taxes. The British responded by jailing tens of thousands of protestors, and in several cases, opened fire on non-violent protesters.
14. In the 1800s, the British commissioned a wall of thorny hedges and sharpened wooden stakes 12 feet high, which ran for hundreds of miles across India, dividing people from their neighbors. They did this to stop salt smugglers.
15. Britain and China fought two wars because China kept trying to stop the British East India Company from smuggling opium into the country.
16Britain, The Biggest Drug Dealer
Britain had become the biggest drug dealer ever by the turn of the 20th century; at the expense of China, which had developed the biggest drug addiction problem ever. In 1906, 23.3% of the adult Chinese men were addicted to opium.
17. The Dutch East India Company was the most valuable company in history. At its peak it was worth 78 million Dutch Guilders, which adjusted to dollars, at present, it would be worth $7.4 trillion.
18. Bombay (modern Mumbai) was given away as part of a dowry to Charles II (r. 1660–85) when he married Catherine of Braganza in May 1662. The Portuguese king leased it to the East India Company for 10 pounds of gold per year.
19. The British parliament outlawed slavery in 1833, except in India and Sri Lanka which were under the possession of the East India Company.
20. The Ottoman Empire had an overseas colony in Indonesia called the Aceh Sultanate. It was first colonized in 1496 and was lost to the Dutch East Indies in 1903 during the Aceh War.
21International African Association
The Belgian colonization of the Congo occurred under a front organization known as the International African Association, which portrayed itself as an altruistic and charitable organization and received donations from families such as the Rothschilds and Viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps.
22. The Thirteen Colonies were used as penal colonies for English criminals between the 1600s and 1776. Historians estimate that anywhere from 50,000 to 120,000 criminals were transferred to these colonies. After America's independence, the British tried to substitute America with Ghana and Senegal, but ultimately deciding on using Australia as penal colonies.
23. Kohinoor is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. It is 105.6 carats and is currently part of the British Crown Jewels. It was willed to the East India Company by Indian king Ranjeet Singh but after his death, his will not was executed and the diamond was given to the Queen.
24. The music of Nauru in Micronesia has been scantly recorded and documented, partially as a result of a ban on traditional dance which was enforced by the German colonial authorities after the 1888 annexation by Germany.
25. In the Portuguese colony of Macau, many slaves during the 1500s had slaves of their own. A Portuguese master often owned an African or Southeast Asian slave who in turn had their own Chinese or Japanese slave.
