Warlord Habibullah Kalakani, deposed after ten months styling himself King of Afghanistan, was publicly shot on this date in 1929. An ethnic Tajik whose surname alludes to his native village north of Kabul, Kalakani served in the army of Emir Amanullah Khan.* This Khan aspired to far-reaching reforms that would modernize his marchlands kingdom and not for the last time an Afghan ruler found this programme stoked a furious resistance among tribal grandees. Kalakani, though derisively nicknamed Bacha Seqao (son of a water-carrier) was just such a grandee, having pivoted profitably from regular military orders to highway robbery. When Khan’s...