BBC History Magazine February 2019

In 1972 the Ugandan leader Idi Amin expelled the country’s Asian population. Given just three months to leave, and allowed to take only a small amount of money, almost 30,000 Ugandan Asians made their way to Britain to begin a new life. The immigrants encountered hostility and racism, but at the same time many Britons flocked to their aid, providing food and shelter and even lessons in how to take tea. On page 50 of this month’s issue, Becky Taylor revisits the events of almost half a century ago and reveals how the Ugandan Asians went on to become one of Britain’s immigration ‘success stories’.
New arrivals of a far less peaceable kind are the subject of this month’s cover feature, which takes us back to the turn of the second millennium. On page 20 Laura Ashe describes the Viking invasions of the 10th and 11th centuries through the eyes of the horrified Anglo-Saxon bishop Wulfstan.