The Great Fire of London + 350: when things go wrong, blame foreigners

350 years ago this autumn….more than 80 per cent of the City of London was destroyed or damaged by the Great Fire of London, so what has that got to do with Brexit?

Well, the fire started on September 1 in a bakery making ship’s biscuit for the Royal Navy, but oddly the man responsible for burning down most of the city did not want to admit it was his fault.

So instead the authorities arrested and hanged a French watchmaker from Rouen. Virtually no one in government believed he was responsible, but it was easier to execute him than to stand up to popular prejudice.

The London mob also attacked other French people as well as citizens of the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. Many people with overseas accents were taken into custody for their own protection.

It was a disturbing example of a recurrent theme in English history: when things go wrong, blame foreigners.

For the full story see London’s Disasters (The History Press).

War crimes: Of Bangladesh and long shadows

Facebook has been restored in Bangladesh, after a three-week shutdown following the hanging of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid for war crimes during the country’s bloody struggle for independence from Pakistan 44 years ago.

A special war crimes tribunal had found Chowdhury guilty of 9 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds. While Mujahid was convicted of 5, including abduction and murder.

Both were prominent opposition politicians. A senior figure in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Chowdhury had been elected an MP 6 times. Mujahid, an Islamist, was social welfare minister from 2001 to 2006. Both men maintained their innocence.

The tribunal was set up in 2010 by the current government, following an election pledge to bring murderers to justice, but human rights groups argue the men were not given a fair trial.