Captain Cook statue sawn off at the ankles in Australia Day anti-colonial protests

Activists in Australia have toppled a statue of Capt James Cook and daubed a statue of Queen Victoria with red paint in protest at British settlement of the country more than two centuries ago. The bronze statue of the British explorer was sawn off at the ankles, with vandals spraying the words “the colony will fall” on its granite plinth. Capt Cook, who was born in Yorkshire and claimed the eastern coast of Australia for the British Empire, was described as a “murderer for British imperialism” by protesters. The damage to the monuments, both of them in Melbourne, came on the eve of Australia Day on Friday, the annual holiday which commemorates the arrival of the British First Fleet of convicts in Botany Bay in 1788. Capt Cook had landed there and planted the British flag 18 years before, in 1770. #australia #protest #activist Read more on this story here: Subscri