The context: the UK ended slavery within the empire by taking out a huge loan to buy all the slaves in the empire, then freeing them. The loan wasn’t fully paid off until recently, so UK taxpayers were effectively paying for money that had been given to slave owners. However, it quickly and decisively put a stop to slavery in a lot of the world without much fuss or objection, when it otherwise could have triggered wars.









Unlike Reddit, it’s possible to edit the link a post links to after the fact, so it’s possible to swap in an uncropped link later instead of just removing the post.