As Ireland went to the polls in December 1918, voters had a choice between Sinn Fein and the Irish Parliamentary Party, and between two radically different visions of Ireland’s future. ibid.
Both Unionists and Republicans would take advantage of another political force that emerged for the first time in 1918: Women. They had become more politically engaged before the war, and were voting now for the first time. They included the members of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council. ibid.
‘Sinn Fein took matters into their own hands and formed an independent though illegal parliament in Dublin … The Dail is backed by force which is rapidly known as the IRA.’ ibid.
Republicans in favour of taking up arms had already done so. On the same day as the Dail sat in Dublin for the first time, two members of the Irish Royal Constabulary were killed in an IRA ambush in County Tipperary. The first shots of the Irish War of Independence had been fired. ibid.
Lisburn: Loyalists went on the rampage in the town, looting and burning Catholic homes and businesses. ibid.
The deployment of the Black-and-Tans was to backfire, and their reputation for brutality and reprisal attacks on civilians and property intensified the conflict in the south, leading to international condemnation. ibid.
Despite the war of independence raging across the island, Unionists in the north continued to lay the foundations for a new state. ibid.
1918: In Ireland, Nationalist demands for independence from Britain had already resulted in an armed rebellion in 1916, and the bloody fallout from radicalised public opinion. While Nationalists wanted to break from centuries of British rule, in the industrial north-east of the island, many Unionists feared the loss of their cultural and economic ties to Britain and the empire. The Road to Partition II
This was a royal visit like no other. The King and Queen had come to a land where a bloody war to win independence from Britain still raged, and a city ravaged by sectarian violence. ibid.
The Irish delegation succumbed to pressure and signed the Treaty. But deeply conflicted by its terms, Collins said that he had in fact signed his own death warrant. ibid.
Just two months later in August 1922 the civil war was to take a dramatic turn and claim its most high profile victim: Michael Collins. ibid.
Britain fought the Second World War with a bunch of ordinary office workers, grocers, bakers and housewives. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain IV: World War II
A memorial next to Bethnal Green tube station, erected surprisingly recently in 2017, marks the worst British civilian disaster in World War II: 173 people were crushed to death. ibid.
When Operation Desert Storm was launched in early 1991 … I reminded myself just how greedy the superpowers of the world had become for crude oil. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson I: A Storm in the Desert, Channel 4 2021
‘A lot of the families feel very forgotten.’ ibid. Mal Craighill, RAF
The seeds of the Gulf War were sown years before, rising out of the ashes of another conflict that had raged in the region. ibid.
A voice reported to be Saddam Hussein announced on Iraqi radio, ‘the Mother of all Battles has begun.’ ibid.
The Balkans, what we tend to call the former states of Yugoslavia, have been a battleground for thousands of years … The former Soviet states began to crumble, and a delicate peace was broken … The most uncivil of civil wars raged. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson II: Bloodshed in Bosnia
Around 100,000 people lost their lives during the three-year-old bitter, brutal and bloody war. ibid.
Many leaders in the West weren’t sure how to intervene in this highly charged and highly sensitive conflict. ibid.
In the 1950s Britain was reeling from a major financial crises brought about by the Second World War … We started suffering from a huge identity crisis as we entered this brave new post-war era. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson III: Suez
Britain and allied France had no intention of giving up control of the Suez Canal. When Egypt seized the canal, cool heads should have prevailed. ibid.
The 1956 invasion of the Suez canal zone turned Britain from a global superpower into an international embarrassment all in the space of just nine days … The soldiers on the ground had to face the consequences. ibid.
The Malayan Emergency is a forgotten conflict … a communist uprising that tied commonwealth troops down for almost a decade … The conflict is hardly ever talked about. Tony Robinson, Britain’s Forgotten Wars IV: Malaysia
Over 10,000 people were killed and at least 400,000 were forced into internment camps. ibid.
Internment camps became known as ‘new villages’. ibid.
Reports from the Korean War are still vivid in my mind … For three years the country was in turmoil as the Cold War heated up. And despite the fact that nearly five million people were killed, the bloodshed in Korea has become known as the Forgotten War. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson V: Korea
‘We lost 1,106 troops, which is more than Afghanistan, Iraq and the Falklands put together.’ ibid. Alna Guy, Britain army
The UN force was made up from over 20 countries. ibid.
‘We can estimate that 40,000 troops and service personnel probably served in Korea during the three years of the conflict.’ ibid. historian
And so it comes to pass that in November 1950 Chinese forces pour into North Korea and change the entire complexion of the war. ibid.
What I was told was a lie … Mau-Mau represented a radical reaction to a series of economic, political and social changes brought about by the British rulers for their own gain … A bitter and bloody war had been fought on the way to Kenya’s independence. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson VI: Mau-Mau
The British would rather choose to forget … The freedom fighters took an oath to expel the white man from their homeland. ibid.
Kenya had been colonised ever since the British East Africa Company arrived towards the end of the nineteenth century. ibid.
The workers were repressed while the land owners lived a life of luxury. ibid.
‘Kenya also had an apartheid system that was imported by the British and by white settlers.’ ibid. Anna Adima, York University
The British officially declared them to be terrorists. ibid.
Guerrilla warfare had broken out in Kenya. ibid.
A time of glamour, class division, social progress and the height of empire: the Edwardian era. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s2e2: Edwardians, Discovery 2012
Chainmaking: Patience say that from the age of ten she worked relentlessly and hardly ever had a day off … A new minimum wage which meant that chainmaking companies had to pay their workers a whole penny more, an increase of over 50%. So how did the owners respond? Easy. They just refused to pay it … In 1910 the National Federation of Women Workers called a strike. In retaliation the employers locked the chainmakers out … Patience aged 79 joined the march … And after a ten-week standoff the employers finally caved in. ibid.
Tottenham Hotspur had just won promotion to the First Division and now they wanted Walter … Britain’s first professional black player. ibid.
1950s: it was a time of optimism as Brits picked themselves up from the Second World War. We had a new young Queen, and celebrated hopes of a brighter future with the Festival of Britain. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s2e3: 1950s
The early ’50s saw a massive recruitment drive for nurses; they came from across the world, from the West Indies to Ireland, part of an unprecedented period of immigration that bolstered both the NHS and the British economy. ibid.
In 1965 Malcolm X, the US Civil Rights leader, arrives in the UK on a speaking tour, spreading the message of black liberation. On a visit to the Congress of Black Unity in London, Michael encounters the charismatic revolutionary. Michael X: Hustler, Revolutionary, Outlaw, caption, Sky Showcase 2021
He [Malcolm] never went anywhere without his little black case, with a mobile library of statistics ranging from transportation of slaves hundreds of years ago to the latest figures on black poverty. ibid. Michael
Courtaulds Ltd: 900 workers went on strike after a row with the management … ‘The strike as such here involved coloured people.’ ibid. Malcolm’s BBC interview
RAAS is one of a growing number of black civil rights organisations that emerge in the 1960s. With Michael at the helm, it soon gains a high profile. By 1967 Michael X is the most high profile black activist in Britain and claims to have some 60,000 followers of his RAS Organisation. ibid.