Free Republic

Execution by cannon was a method of execution in which the victim was typically tied to the mouth of a cannon which was then fired. The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun;...

A day after India’s solicitor general told the Supreme Court that it won’t request the return of the 106-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is now part of the British crown jewels, the government reversed track and said it would work to bring the diamond back. India’s solicitor general had said Monday that Britain shouldn’t have to give the diamond back, since it was given freely to the British in the mid-19th century by the family of Punjab’s Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and had been “neither stolen nor forcibly taken by British rulers.” […] The diamond is on display in the Tower of...

NEW DELHI: Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, had advanced independence by nine months from June 1948 to August 1947 because of his desperation to leave the affairs of the country to the people, according to his daughter Pamela Hicks. In an interview, Hicks said, "It was essential that this was brought forward... it was time for India to cope with her own problems." Mountbatten, she said, held that partition was "completely unreal, crazy and unworkable". The reason for this haste was his wife Edwina's opposition to his taking over as governor general. Hicks disagreed that partition of the...

After lying buried in a grave near Lucknow for 145 years, an Englishman has been 'discovered' to have supernatural powers. Local people are today flocking to the site with hopes of having their most cherished wishes fulfilled. Devotees of Captain F. Wale, a British officer who raised and commanded the First Irregular Sikh Cavalry and was killed at Lucknow Residency during the mutiny of 1857, bring an interesting assortment of goodies as offering - fruits and flowers are being supplemented with liquor, cigarettes and meat. The Cult of the Gora Baba (as the dead Englishman has fondly been re-christened) has...