Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha was a German military commander widely condemned for his conduct of the Herero Wars in German South-West Africa, especially for the events that led to the near-extermination of the Herero. At the Battle of...

Cut Nyak Dhien or Tjoet Nja' Dhien was a leader of the Acehnese guerrilla forces during the Aceh War. Following the death of her husband Teuku Umar, she led guerrilla actions against the Dutch for 25 years. She was posthumously awarded the...

Ned Kelley is Australia's most famous bushranger and, to many, a folk hero for his defiance of the colonial authorities. From the age of fourteen, Ned began committing a series of minor crimes that escalated into more serious crimes and eve...

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was a Dutch novelist and poet of the late 19th and early 20th Century. He is usually considered one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature. Born in the Netherlands in 1863, Couperus grew up in a wealthy pat...

Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer was a British Indian Army officer who, as a temporary Brigadier general, was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar (in the British Indian province of Punjab). Dyer was removed from duty...

Pakubuwono X was the tenth Susuhunan (ruler of Surakarta). His reign corresponded with the political changes happening in the Dutch East Indies at the time, in particular the growth of local indigenous political organizations such as Budi U...

Vallabhbhai Patel, popularly known as Sardar Patel, was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was an Indian barrister and statesman, a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and a founding father of the Republic of India who p...

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Empire. From complex beginnings, the war is notable for several particularly bloody battles, as well as for being a landmark in the timeline of colonialism in th...

Willem Drees was a Dutch politician, prime minister of the Netherlands from 1948 until 1958, as a member of the social-democratic Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). Born in Amsterdam, Drees was known as Vadertje Drees ("Father Drees"), and was very...

Cornelis Gerard Anton de Kom was a Surinamese resistance fighter and anti-colonialist author. On May 10, De Kom was sent to The Netherlands without trial and exiled from his native country. He was unemployed and continued writing his boo...

Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe's first president after the establishment of majority rule and the official granting of independence from Britain in 1980. He still holds that position today. Mugabe was a hero in the struggle for majority rule...

Patrice Emery Lumumba, African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later. In January...

The Battle of the Java Sea was a decisive naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, that sealed the fate of the Netherlands East Indies. Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat at the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, on 27...