Morning Troops!

The shortest war in history was literally only… 38 minutes!

Crazy story…

So it's the 1890s.

And Britain has just taken over 20% of the entire world.

One of these many places was the tiny island of Zanzibar.

Some quick things to know about Zanzibar.

It was the trade center of the Indian Ocean.

It looks like this:

It was kinda (but not really) led by this guy, the Sultan of Zanzibar:

Now Britain technically “owned” the island but they kept the Sultan of Zanzibar as “leader” just so the people wouldn’t decide to do any revolting.

But in reality, he was basically a pro-British puppet.

As long as he was around, Britain was in charge and nothing bad would ever happen…

The only trouble?

He just died.

Probably because he was poisoned by this guy:

The original sultan’s cousin.

And after the sultan's death, his cousin Khalid (who REALLY wanted to be sultan and was incredibly ANTI-British) got together an army of 3,000 men and stormed the palace of Zanzibar.

This was a bit of a problem for the British as they needed a sultan in power who… actually liked the British.

So they tried to persuade Khalid to leave the palace.

But it… didn't work.

So the Brits had to resort to… harsher means.

Khalid was like:

During this hour, the British noticed the Zanzibari rebels setting up their ONE cannon on the beach outside the palace.

And positioning their ONE small warship between the 5 giant British ones.

Then, when the clock struck 1 hour and the Zanzibari rebels hadn’t given up the palace, the British OPENED FIRE!

Their first few shots completely destroyed the Zanzibari rebels’ cannon and ship.

Then they absolutely BOMBARDED the palace with explosive shells.

And after about 30-ish minutes of this, the Zanzibari rebels were like:

So the British stopped firing.

And that was it…the war ended in 38 minutes!

Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈

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