History of London minor crimes. Public hangings were common in London, and were popular public events. In 1780, London was rocked by the Gordon Riots, an uprising by Protestants against Roman Catholic emancipation led by Lord George Gordon. Severe damage was caused to Catholic churches and homes, and 285 rioters were killed. In the year 1787, freed slaves from London, America, and many of Britain's colonies founded Freetown in modern-day Sierra Leone. Up until 1750, London Bridge was the only crossing over the Thames, but in that year Westminster Bridge was opened and, for the first time in history, London Bridge, in a
Secret societies in colonial Singapore first of which was the Anti-Catholic Riots which took place from February 15–20, 1851, with an estimated 500 dead. The reasons for the riots were due to the successes in which the Catholics had in having converts to Catholicism, which meant that the pool in which secret societies could draw membership from had shrunk, given the Taoist styled religious connotation that secret societies entailed. The second was the Teochew-Hokkien Riots, also known as the Great Riots of 1854 or the Five Catties of Rice Riots, which took place three years later from May 5–17, 1854, with an almost equal death