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On this date in 1771, Henry Stroud and Robert Campbell were hanged at Bethnal Green Road — a pointed message to the Spitalfield working class. Their hanging was tit for tat in an exchange of deadly violence between the state and laboring Londoners. Two years before, an anti-union law making it a capital crime to cut silk out of looms had actually been put to use with the hanging of two as part of the suppression of a Spitalfields weavers riot. This execution provoked in the following months a horrifying mob vengeance against the independent weaver who had testified —...

'A British PoW captured by the Germans in World War I was freed to see his dying mother - but went back to the prison camp after giving the Kaiser 'his word' he would return. Capt Robert Campbell, aged 29, was gravely injured and captured just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany in July, 1914. But after two years in Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp, the British officer received word from home his mother Louise Campbell was close to death. He speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II, begging to be allowed home to visit his mother one final time....

A British soldier was freed from a German POW camp during World War One to see his dying mother - and kept his promise to the Kaiser by returning, historians have discovered. Captain Robert Campbell, aged 29, was captured just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany in July, 1914. But after two years in Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp the British officer received word from home his mother Louise Campbell was close to death. He speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II begging to be allowed home to visit his mother one final time. Incredibly the German leader granted the...

Crawford mayor is Kerry supporter BY GROMER JEFFERS JR. The Dallas Morning News (KRT) - Crawford may be the heart of Bush country, but the town's mayor says John Kerry is the best choice for president. "I don't see where I'm better off than I was four years ago," Robert Campbell said Tuesday. "I don't see where the city is any better off." The Kerry campaign recently listed Campbell as one of 100 black mayors around the country - seven of them Texans - who support the Massachusetts senator over President Bush. But the campaign has not focused particular attention...