The liberation of Korea from its 1910 annexation by the Japanese Empire is officially recognised as having taken place in 1945 upon Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces of the Second World War. However, Korean civilian activism against the regime had a long-standing history, culminating in the 1919 March 1st Independence Movement, which saw more than a thousand individual demonstrations nationwide.
1821 was possibly the most inopportune time to begin a war for independence in Europe. A few years prior, Napoleon was crushed, and the European powers inaugurated a revived conservative status quo in the Congress of Vienna that endeavoured to prevent any further upsets to the continent’s power balance. No more shocks and a good dose of conservative rule. Then came the Greeks declaring independence.
The union between England and Scotland was solidified with the 1707 Acts of Union; creating what we know as ‘Great Britain’. 2007 saw the 300 year anniversary of this union and it was celebrated with the release of a commemorative £2 coin. The September 2014 referendum, on the issue of Scottish Independence, featured weightily in Continue Reading
Irish independence was the beginning of the end of the British Empire. Alice Rigby writes a potted history of the events leading up to this moment.
Given that independence is one of the hottest topics of the year, Stephen Wears argues that there is an historical precedent for independence.
