End of Empire

The fall of Singapore in 1942, and an examination of how the British Empire -- the largest in the history of the world -- had survived to that point.

In 1939 Lord Linlithgow the Viceroy, declared India at war with Germany without consulting one Indian, and Winston Churchill expected India to provide soldiers without any reward....

At Independence, Britain's achievement of bringing unity to India was destroyed, mainly due to Winston Churchill and the leader of India's 100 million Muslims, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

By early 1947, British soldiers and officials could no longer control India. Their numbers had fallen and a frenzy of murder was spreading through the subcontinent. PM Attlee appoi...

The British Army and Chinese Communists fought side-by-side against Japanese forces in the Malayan jungle in the 1940s. The Communists' leader, Chin Peng, was awarded the OBE by th...

In promising the Jewish people a home in a country which belonged to Arabs, the British were embarking on a policy which led to hatred and bloodshed. Britain's undignified departur...

In 1953 the British exercised imperialist muscle and toppled Iranian PM Mohammad Mosaddegh -- who had freed his country from foreign domination (particularly the Anglo-Iranian Oil...

Egypt was formally part of the empire from 1914 to 1922, but the Suez Canal zone remained central to imperial defence and trade for decades afterwards. The British invasion of Suez...

Britain thought it could hang on to Aden after giving independence to all its principal colonies in Asia and Africa. But the Egyptian-inspired Arabs proved fierce opponents, and th...

Leading Cypriots petitioned twice to join Greece in a dominant Greek political state -- in 1830 upon the creation of the Kingdom of Greece and in 1878 when Britain took control of...

Riots in Accra and other Gold Coast towns in 1948 tested Britain's post-India strategy of power sharing, moderate leaders, and voluntary concessions. Rather than exert firm repress...

Mau Mau -- depraved barbarians to the British, desperate nationalists in their own eyes -- waged a bloody and brutal rising. The trial and imprisonment of their "manager" Jomo Keny...

In 1953 Britain launched a huge new state in Africa made up of the present Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Its ideal was peaceful cooperation between black and white. It lasted only...

In a 15-year rebellion, white Rhodesians seized independence illegally and held it in the face of world opposition until weakened by African military force. Then, in a diplomatic c...