An average-length episode, a flight from Paris to London, one half of a soccer game: these are all longer than the shortest war in history.
The Anglo-Zanzibar War took place on August 27th, 1896.
It lasted less than 40 minutes.
The East African island of Zanzibar had come under the control of the British Empire just a few years before.
Britain had two goals for its new protectorate: abolish slavery there and fix the economy.
Britain had agreed to keep the existing sultanate in place, but the sultan's power was diminished by Zanzibar's treaty with Britain.
British officials soon found some sultans to be more receptive toward their agenda than others.
During the 1890s the British government tried to install a ruler who would support abolition: a tough ask in Zanzibar, where the economy was built on the spice trade and ending slavery meant earning the ire of many of the richest members of the population.
Ḥamad ibn Thuwayn was made sultan in 1893.
Ḥamad was seen as a puppet of the British Empire.
