US and Iran Exchange Blockades in Strait of Hormuz as Tehran Submits 14-Point Proposal via Pakistan

The Nigerian Civil War began in July 1967. The Biafra blockade lasted nearly three years and ended with the Biafran surrender in January 1970. One to two million people died in the Biafra blockade, the vast majority from hunger and disease.

The Beira Patrol was a nine-year-long blockade by the British navy from 1966 to 1975 to prevent oil from reaching Rhodesia through the Mozambican port of Beira. The Beira Patrol was enforced under United Nations sanctions following Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence. The Beira Patrol ended in July 1975.

The Beira Patrol operation tied up 76 naval ships over nine years, with two frigates required on station at all times. In October 1962, the US ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba after US U-2 spy planes discovered Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction on the island. The US quarantine of Cuba drew a line 500 nautical miles (920km) from Cuba’s coast.

The US naval quarantine of Cuba was formally ended on November 20, 1962. The Soviets dismantled their offensive weapons in Cuba in exchange for a US public declaration not to invade Cuba and a secret agreement to remove US Jupiter missiles from Turkiye.

UN naval forces led by the US imposed a blockade of the North Korean port of Wonsan in February 1951.

During the October 1950 mine-clearance operation, the sweepers USS Pledge and USS Pirate were sunk, killing 12 men and wounding dozens. The US imposed a submarine blockade against Japan during the Pacific War, beginning in 1942. US submarines sank some 1,300 Japanese merchant ships and roughly 200 warships over the course of the war.

By 1945, oil imports to Japan had effectively ceased. The US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945. In August 1915, Allied forces imposed a blockade of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean from the Aegean Sea to the Egyptian frontier.

The eastern Mediterranean blockade was initiated by Britain and France, later assisted by Italy and other Allied powers. The eastern Mediterranean blockade remained in place throughout World War I and was lifted in October 1918 when Allied forces occupied Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

The eastern Mediterranean blockade led to 500,000 deaths by 1918, mostly civilians, with Mount Lebanon losing an estimated one-third of its population.

The British navy began blockading Germany in August 1914. The Allied blockade of Germany extended from the English Channel to Norway. The Allied blockade of Germany was not fully lifted until July 1919, after the Treaty of Versailles had been signed.

Between 424,000 and 763,000 civilians died from diseases related to hunger and malnutrition due to the Allied blockade of Germany.