* February 18 – Benin is put to the torch by the Punitive Expedition.

Alain Boisragon, one of the survivors of the Benin Massacre, includes references to the practice of human sacrifice in the city in a firsthand account written in 1898 ( one year after the Punitive Expedition ).

Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, GCB, GCMG ( 5 November 1843 – 3 November 1910 ), is chiefly remembered for overseeing the British Benin Expedition of 1897 that burned and looted the city of the Kingdom of Benin, now in Nigeria.

Admiral Rawson was appointed commander of British naval forces at the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa Station in 1895 and held that post at the time of the Benin Expedition which was regarded in British circles largely as a stroke of disciplined and coordinated planning:

The operation was named Benin Punitive Expedition, and on 9 February 1897 the invasion of Benin kingdom began ,.

Reporting on the abortive Expedition into Benin.

In 1897, the British launched a Punitive Expedition, sacked Benin city and exiled Oba Ovonramwen, taking control of the area in order to establish the British colony of Nigeria.

* Benin Expedition of 1897, a British force of 1, 200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson that captured, burned, and looted the city of Benin

The ' Gallwey Treaty ', although it was never signed, became the legal basis for British invasion, occupation, and looting, culminating in the Benin Expedition of 1897, which destroyed the Kingdom of Benin.

Whilst with the Forte he was involved in the Punitive Expedition of 1897 in Benin.

Category: British military personnel of the Benin Expedition of 1897

The famed Benin City, destroyed by the Punitive Expedition, was a large complex of homes in coursed mud, with hipped roofs of shingles or palm leaves.

It is easily confused with the historical empire governed by the Oba of Benin from the 14th century until 1897, from a seat of power sited at Benin City in present-day Nigeria.

The Benin Walls were ravaged by the British in 1897.

On 17 February 1897, Benin City fell to the British.

On 4 January 1897, the Benin strike force composed mainly of border guards and servants of some chiefs caught Phillips ' column totally unprepared at Ugbine village near Gwato.

On 12 January 1897, Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson, commanding the squadron at the Cape of Good Hope was appointed by the British Admiralty to lead an expedition to capture the Benin king and destroy Benin City.

Drawing of Benin City made by an English officer, 1897

Subsequently a military operation against Benin in 1897 led by Harry Rawson resulted in the burning of Benin City and the deaths of untold numbers of its inhabitants.

He was the first European to visit the region of Benin in Nigeria and named the river located there, the Rio Fermoso.

Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin.

In 1975, the country was renamed " The People's Republic of Benin " after the Bight of Benin ( not the unrelated historical Kingdom of Benin ) since " Benin ," unlike " Dahomey ," was deemed politically neutral for all ethnic groups in the state.

In 1891, Rivières du Sud was placed under the colonial lieutenant governor at Dakar, who had authority over the French coastal regions east to Porto-Novo ( modern Benin ).

By the mid-15th century, the Benin Empire was engaged in political expansion and consolidation.

Benin was never a significant exporter of slaves, as Alan Ryder's book Benin and the Europeans showed.

Together with other smaller islands in the River Niger, it was the main object of a territorial dispute between Niger and Benin, which had begun when the two entities were still under French rule.

The Republic of Benin was the seat of Dahomey, one of the great medieval African kingdoms, governed from the capital, Abomey, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Benin was thus the first African country to effect successfully the transition from dictatorship to a pluralistic political system.

In the second round of National Assembly elections held in March 1995, Soglo's political vehicle, the Parti de la Renaissance du Benin, was the largest single party but lacked an overall majority.

The cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cotonou. The diocese was originally created on June 26, 1883, as the Apostolic Prefecture of Dahomey from the Apostolic Vicariate of Benin Coast, Nigeria.

Porto-Novo ( also known as Hogbonou and Adjacé ) is the official capital of the West African nation of Benin, and was the capital of French Dahomey.

In Dahomey mythology of Benin in West Africa, the serpent that supports everything on its many coils was named Dan.

The short-lived Republic of Benin, in Nigeria's coastal Bight of Benin, was named after its capital Benin City.

As Nigerian forces were to retake the Mid-West, the Republic of Benin was unilaterally declared at 07: 00 on 19 September 1967.

This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin.

This vigilance and the Colonial Office's refusal to grant approval for an invasion of Benin City scuttled the expedition the Protectorate had planned for early 1895.

In November Phillips made a formal request to his superiors in England for permission to invade Benin City, and, in late December 1896, without waiting for a reply or approval from London, Phillips embarked on a military expedition with two Niger Coast Protectorate Force officers, a medical officer, two trading agents, 250 African soldiers masquerading in part as porters, and in part as a drum and pipe band.

Only two British officers survived the annihilation of Phillips ' expedition, which became known as the ' The Benin Massacre '.

Most of the plunder was retained by the expedition with some 2500 ( official figures ) religious artifacts, Benin visual history, mnemonics and artworks being sent to England.

The expected revenue from the expedition was discussed already before Phillips set out on his ill-fated journey to the city of Benin in 1896.

Historical fiction about the Benin Punitive expedition.

To cover the cost of the expedition, the Benin royal art was auctioned off by the British.