Indonesia – From Colonization to Independence

Pinkerton's incredibly detailed 1818 map of the East Indies. (Wikimedia Commons) The end of the 19th century was a tumultuous time in Southeast Asian history. Many colonial nations developed strong nationalist movements and, eventually, overthrew their colonial masters. Unlike Africa - recently colonized during the "Scramble for Africa" in the 1880s and 1890s - much…

03/09 – The Fall of the Dutch East Indies

An IJA "banzai" charge on Manado, Indonesia, sometime in 1942. (Reddit) On this day in 1942, Dutch troops on Indonesia - then known as the Dutch East Indies - surrendered to Japanese forces. Beginning one day after the assault on Pearl Harbour in December of the following year, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) launched a…