1897 AD
British forces capture and loot Benin City
British Empire · War & conquest · Resistance & colonized agency · Memory, reparation & restitution
After a British expedition was killed while advancing despite warnings, a punitive force captured Benin City, deposed Oba Ovonramwen, and removed thousands of court objects. Their sale helped finance the operation and dispersed the so-called “Benin Bronzes” through museums and collections worldwide
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- Date not recorded
Reading the date: point event.
Sources
- www.britishmuseum.org (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- Pending verification: the source could not be accessed
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
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