Posts from March 29, 2026

On 29 March 1857, Sepoy Mangal Pandey shot at his officers at Barrackpore and started no rebellion. Six weeks later India was on fire. The uprising that followed ended the East India Company — and handed the subcontinent to the Crown for ninety more years.

In 1911, a cartel of Western banks lent the dying Qing dynasty £6 million to nationalise China's railways and hand the proceeds to foreign creditors. The protests that followed toppled the empire. The bonds were still worthless in 1983.