User:Underwaterbuffalo/Other/From Macartney Embassy to 1949

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This is a timeline of Chinese history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in China and its predecessor states. For a background to these events, see History of China. See also the list of rulers of China, dynasties in Chinese history and years in China.

17th century

Year	Date	Event
1637	30 January	Second Manchu invasion of Korea: The Joseon king Injo of Joseon recognized Hong Taiji's Qing dynasty as the legitimate rulers of China.
		Song Yingxing published the Tiangong Kaiwu.
1638		The Peking Gazette first used moveable type.
1639		Xu Guangqi published a treatise on agriculture.
		Chen Hongshou arrived in Beijing.
1641	8 March	Xu Xiake died.
1642		1642 Yellow River flood: The Ming governor of Kaifeng destroyed the levees holding back the Yellow River in order to break the siege of the peasant army of Li Zicheng. The resulting flood destroyed Kaifeng and killed some three hundred thousand people.
		A Han army was made the last of the Qing Eight Banners.
1643	21 September	Hong Taiji died.
	8 October	Hong Taiji's young son the Shunzhi Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1644	25 April	The Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself from the Zuihuai as the army of Li Zicheng's Shun dynasty breached the walls of the Ming capital Beijing.
	27 May	Battle of Shanhai Pass: An Shun army was dealt a heavy defeat by the Qing and the former Ming general Wu Sangui at Shanhai Pass.
	4 June	Li Zicheng fled Beijing.
1645	20 May	Yangzhou massacre: Qing forces conquered Yangzhou from the Southern Ming. A ten-day massacre began in which some eight hundred thousand people would be killed.
1653	January	The 5th Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, visited the Qing capital Beijing.
1659		Jesuits Martino Martini and Ferdinand Verbiest arrived in China.
1661	5 February	The Shunzhi Emperor died. He was succeeded by his young son the Kangxi Emperor, with the Four Regents of the Kangxi Emperor acting as regents.
	14 June	The Southern Ming admiral Koxinga declared the establishment of the Kingdom of Tungning on Taiwan.
1662	1 February	Siege of Fort Zeelandia: The VOC surrendered Fort Zeelandia on Taiwan to Koxinga.
1664		Schall von Bell was imprisoned.
1673		Revolt of the Three Feudatories: Wu rebelled against the Qing dynasty on the pretext of seeking to restore the Ming.
1682		The Belgian Jesuit Antoine Thomas arrived in China.
1683		Battle of Penghu: A Qing fleet destroyed the Tungning navy at Penghu. The king of Tungning Zheng Keshuang surrendered to the Qing.
1684		The first of the Qing Thirteen Factories, neighborhoods where foreigners were allowed to live and trade, were established outside Guangzhou.
1689	27 August	The Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russia, under which the two countries mutually agreed to a border at the Stanovoy Range.
1690		Yun Shouping died.
1698		The Lugou Bridge was reconstructed.

18th century

Year	Date	Event
1705	4 December	The papal legate Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon arrived in the Qing capital Beijing.
1711		The East India Company (EIC) established a trading post in Guangzhou.
		The Peiwen Yunfu was completed.
1715	19 March	Chinese Rites controversy: The pope Pope Clement XI issued a papal bull forbidding veneration of the dead and worship of Confucius among Chinese converts to Catholicism.
1716		The Kangxi Dictionary was published.
1720		Chinese expedition to Tibet (1720): A Qing expedition expelled the invading forces of the Dzungar Khanate from Tibet.
1721		Chinese Rites controversy: The Kangxi Emperor banned Christian missions in China.
1722	20 December	The Kangxi Emperor died.
	27 December	The Kangxi Emperor's son the Yongzheng Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1725		The Gujin Tushu Jicheng was completed.
1732		Jiang Tingxi died.
1735	8 October	The Yongzheng Emperor died. He was succeeded by his son the Qianlong emperor.
1750		The French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot was sent to China.
1755		Ten Great Campaigns: The khan of the Dzungar Khanate surrendered to invading Qing forces.
1760		The Canton System was established, under which the Chinese merchants operating in the Thirteen Factories were organized into a guild, the Cohong, and given an official monopoly.
1793	14 September	Macartney Embassy The British ambassador George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney was introduced to the Qianlong Emperor.
1796	9 February	The Qianlong Emperor abdicated in favor of his son the Jiaqing Emperor.
		White Lotus Rebellion: White Lotus began an armed rebellion against the Qing dynasty.

19th century

Year	Date	Event
1807		Protestant missions in China 1807–1953: The Protestant missionary Robert Morrison arrived in China.
1820	2 September	The Jiaqing Emperor died.
	3 October	The Jiaqing Emperor's son the Daoguang Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1823		The Bible was first published in Chinese.
1839	3 June	Destruction of opium at Humen: The Qing Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu ordered the destruction of roughly a thousand tons of opium seized from EIC merchants in Humen.
1842	29 August	First Opium War: The Qing dynasty and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Nanking, under which the former agreed to end the monopoly of the Cohong, pay reparations for the war and the destruction of opium, and cede Hong Kong Island in perpetuity.
1844		Wei Yuan published the Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms.
	3 July	The Qing dynasty and the United States signed the Treaty of Wanghia, according to which the United States was granted most favoured nation (MFN) status and extraterritoriality was granted to its citizens resident in China.
1850	25 February	The Daoguang Emperor died.
	9 March	The Daoguang Emperor's son the Xianfeng Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1851	11 January	Jintian Uprising: The followers of Hong Xiuquan, who believed him to be the younger brother of Jesus, announced their rebellion against the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in modern Guiping.
1855		Third plague pandemic: A plague pandemic began in Yunnan which would kill hundreds of thousands in China and millions worldwide.
		Punti-Hakka Clan Wars: An ethnic conflict began in Guangdong between the Punti and Hakka peoples which would claim roughly a million lives.
1856	23 October	Second Opium War: The British navy began a bombardment of Guangzhou.
1858	28 May	The Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Aigun, ceding to Russia the land north of the Amur River.
	June	Second Opium War: The Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Tientsin, under which foreigners were granted greater freedom of movement within China and France and the United Kingdom were promised war reparations.
	18 November	Battle of Sanhe: A Taiping army encircled and destroyed a much smaller Qing force in Anhui.
1860	18 October	Second Opium War: British and French forces looted and burned down the Old Summer Palace in the Qing capital Beijing.
	24 October	The Qing prince Prince Gong signed the Convention of Peking, ratifying the Treaty of Tientsin and ceding the Kowloon Peninsula in perpetuity to the United Kingdom.
1861		Gong established the Zongli Yamen to temporarily supervise the conduct of foreign affairs throughout the Qing government.
	22 August	The Xianfeng Emperor died.
	11 November	The Xianfeng Emperor's young son the Tongzhi Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1862		Dungan Revolt (1862–77): A disordered uprising began among the Hui people living on the west bank of the Yellow River.
		The Tongwen Guan school of European languages was established.
1864	May	The Ever Victorious Army of the Qing dynasty was disbanded.
1868	22 August	Yangzhou riot: Scholar-officials resident in Yangzhou instigated a riot in which the headquarters of the British missionary society OMF International were attacked and burned.
		Nian Rebellion: The last of the rebel armies was destroyed.
1870	June	Tianjin Massacre: A riot took place in Tianjin in which some sixty people, including foreigners and Chinese Christians, were killed.
1871		Li Hongzhang was appointed Viceroy of Zhili.
1873		Panthay Rebellion: The last surviving Panthay rebels were defeated by the Qing dynasty in Tengchong.
1875	12 January	The Tongzhi Emperor died.
	21 February	Margary Affair: The British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary was murdered with his retinue in Tengchong.
	25 February	The young Guangxu Emperor became emperor of the Qing dynasty, with the empress dowagers Empress Dowager Ci'an and Empress Dowager Cixi acting as regents.
1876	21 August	The Qing dynasty and the United Kingdom signed the Chefoo Convention, under which Qing promised to punish those responsible for Margary's murder and repeal the likin.
1884	23 August	Battle of Fuzhou: A French fleet destroyed the Qing Fujian Fleet at the mouth of the Min River.
1891		Foreign businessmen established the Shanghai Sharebrokers' Association in Shanghai.
1894	1 August	First Sino-Japanese War: War was officially declared between Japan and the Qing dynasty.
1895	17 April	First Sino-Japanese War: The Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which it recognized the independence of Joseon, granted Japan MFN status and ceded to it Penghu, Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula.
1898	11 June	Hundred Days' Reform: The Guangxu Emperor instituted reforms including radical changes in the imperial examination and the elimination of sinecures.
	21 September	The Guangxu Emperor was removed from the imperial palace in a coup organized by Cixi and Ronglu, the Viceroy of Zhili.
1900	21 June	Boxer Rebellion: Cixi responded to anti-foreign unrest by issuing the Imperial Decree of declaration of war against foreign powers in the Guangxu Emperor's name.

20th century

Year	Date	Event
1901	7 September	Boxer Rebellion: The Qing dynasty and Eight-Nation Alliance signed the Boxer Protocol, under which the Alliance was granted war reparations and the right to station troops in the capital Beijing.
1908	14 November	The Guangxu Emperor died of arsenic poisoning.
	2 December	The Guangxu Emperor's young nephew Puyi became emperor of the Qing dynasty.
1911	27 April	Second Guangzhou Uprising: Followers of the revolutionary Huang Xing occupied the residence of the Viceroy of Liangguang.
	10 October	Wuchang Uprising: New Army soldiers staged a mutiny in Wuchang District and occupied the residence of the Viceroy of Huguang.
	29 December	Republic of China provisional presidential election, 1911: Sun Yat-sen was elected president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, with a majority of sixteen of the seventeen provincial representatives of the Tongmenghui in Nanjing.
1912	1 January	Xinhai Revolution: Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China.
	12 February	Xinhai Revolution: Puyi's regent, the empress dowager Empress Dowager Longyu, signed an edict under which Puyi would retain his imperial title but all power would pass to the Provisional Government of the Republic of China.
	10 March	Sun Yat-sen resigned in favor of Yuan Shikai.
	25 August	The Tongmenghui and several smaller revolutionary parties merged to form the Kuomintang (KMT).
		Republic of China National Assembly election, 1912: An election to the National Assembly under the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China began which would produce pluralities for the KMT in the House and Senate.
1915	8 January	Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands to the Republic of China, including demands for territory in Shandong, Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, rights of extraterritoriality for its citizens in China, and influence in China's internal affairs.
	15 September	Chen Duxiu founded the magazine New Youth.
	12 December	Yuan declared himself the Hongxian Emperor of the Empire of China.
		The progressive, anti-Confucian New Culture Movement was founded.
	25 December	National Protection War: The republican generals Cai E and Tang Jiyao declared the independence of Yunnan from the Empire of China.
1916	16 June	Yuan died.
1919	4 May	May Fourth Movement: A student protest against the Treaty of Versailles took place at Tiananmen.
	28 June	The Treaty of Versailles, among whose provisions was the transfer of German territories in Shandong to Japan, was signed.
1921	1 June	The Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded.
	4 December	The first installment of Lu Xun's novel The True Story of Ah Q, the first work written in written vernacular Chinese, was published.
1923	January	The Radio Corporation of China was founded.
		The KMT and CPC agreed to the First United Front, under which Communists would join the KMT as individuals to help combat warlordism.
1926	9 July	Northern Expedition: The KMT general Chiang Kai-shek launched an expedition of some hundred thousand National Revolutionary Army (NRA) soldiers from Guangdong against the warlords Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang.
1927	1 August	Nanchang Uprising: Communist forces launched an uprising against the KMT in Nanchang.
1928	7 May	Jinan Incident: The Japanese general Hikosuke Fukuda tortured and killed seventeen of Chiang's representatives in Jinan.
	4 June	Huanggutun incident: Zhang Zuolin's train was blown up by the Japanese Kwantung Army, killing him.
	10 October	Chiang became chairman of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China.
1931	July	Encirclement Campaign against Northeastern Jiangxi Soviet: The NRA encircled and invested the Northeastern Jiangxi Soviet.
	July	1931 China floods: Flooding began in the valleys of the Yellow, Yangtze and Huai Rivers which would claim as many as four million lives.
	18 September	Mukden Incident: In a false flag operation against the Republic of China, Japanese agents set off a dynamite explosion near a South Manchuria Railway line.
		Japanese invasion of Manchuria: The Kwantung Army invested all Manchurian territory along the South Manchuria Railway.
	7 November	The Chinese Soviet Republic was established in Ruijin.
	15 December	Chiang resigned under pressure from the KMT. Lin Sen became acting chairman of the Nationalist government.
1932	1 January	Lin Sen became chairman of the Nationalist government.
	28 January	January 28 Incident: Japanese aircraft carriers began bombing Shanghai in a series of raids which would kill some four thousand soldiers of the 19th Route Army and as many as twenty thousand Chinese civilians.
	4 February	Defense of Harbin: Japanese bombs and artillery forced the Jilin Self-Defence Army to retreat from Harbin.
	18 February	The independent state of Manchukuo was established on the territory of Japanese-occupied Manchuria.
	9 March	Pacification of Manchukuo: The Big Swords Society rebelled en masse against the government of Manchukuo.
1934	February	Chiang and his wife Soong May-ling established the quasi-fascist New Life Movement.
	16 October	Long March: The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army broke through the KMT lines attempting to encircle them at Ganzhou.
1935	5 February	First Encirclement Campaign against Hubei–Henan–Shaanxi Soviet: Red Army forces forced the retreat of a KMT army attempting to encircle the soviet of Hubei, Henan and Shaanxi provinces.
	9 December	December 9th Movement: A student protest took place in Beijing demanding internal liberalization and stronger anti-Japanese resistance.
1936	12 December	Xi'an Incident: Zhang Xueliang arrested Chiang in Xi'an due to concerns he was insufficiently committed to anti-Japanese resistance.
1937	7 March	Marco Polo Bridge Incident: Roughly one hundred Chinese soldiers were killed defending the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing from a Japanese attack.
	22 September	The KMT and CPC joined to establish the Second United Front. The Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies, which were nominally part of the NRA chain of command.
	25 September	Battle of Pingxingguan: The Eighth Route Army wiped out a Japanese force of a few hundred attempting to bring supplies through Pingxing Pass.
	26 October	Battle of Shanghai: The NRA began withdrawing from downtown Shanghai in the face of a Japanese onslaught.
	10 December	Battle of Nanking: The Japanese Central China Area Army launched a full-scale assault on Nanjing.
	13 December	Nanking Massacre: Nanjing fell to the Japanese Central China Area Army. A six-week massacre began in which tens of thousands of women were raped and as many as three hundred thousand civilians were killed.
1938	18 February	Bombing of Chongqing: The Japanese army and naval air services began a bombing campaign against civilian targets in Chongqing which would kill some ten thousand people.
	7 April	Battle of Taierzhuang: The Japanese army was forced to withdraw after suffering heavy losses in an attempted conquest of Tai'erzhuang District.
1939	1 September	The nominally independent Mengjiang was established on the Mongol territories of the Japanese-occupied Chahar and Suiyuan provinces.
	17 September	Battle of Changsha (1939): The Japanese army attacked Changsha.
1940	20 August	Hundred Regiments Offensive: Communist NRA soldiers under Peng Dehuai began a campaign of terrorism and sabotage against Japanese targets in North China.
1941	1 February	The Communist official Mao Zedong gave a speech in Yan'an entitled "Reform in Learning, the Party and Literature," establishing the Yan'an Rectification Movement and beginning an ideological purge which would claim some ten thousand lives.
	30 September	Battle of Changsha (1941): A Japanese army began a general retreat after failing to take Changsha.
1942	15 January	Battle of Changsha (1942): A Japanese army crossed the Xinqiang River after suffering heavy losses in a failed attempt to conquer Changsha.
1943	1 August	Lin Sen died. Chiang became acting chairman of the Nationalist government.
	27 November	Cairo Conference: Chiang, United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British prime minister Winston Churchill issued the Cairo Declaration, under which the three powers expressed their desire for the independence of Korea and the return of Chinese territories.
1944	27 May	Battle of Changsha (1944): The Japanese army launched a general offensive against Changsha.
1945	26 June	The United Nations Charter establishing the United Nations (UN) was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center by fifty nations including China.
	6 August	Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: As many as eighty thousand Japanese, largely civilians, were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by a United States aircraft.
	9 September	Surrender of Japan: Japanese forces in China formally surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek.
	November	Campaign to Suppress Bandits in Northeast China: The Communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a campaign against bandits and KMT guerillas in northeast China.
1946	20 July	Chinese Civil War: The NRA invaded PLA-held territory en masse.
1947	28 February	228 Incident: Nationalist forces violently suppressed an anti-government protest in Taiwan Province.
	25 December	The Constitution of the Republic of China came into force, dissolving the Nationalist government and renaming the NRA the Republic of China (ROC) Armed Forces.
1948	2 November	Liaoshen Campaign: The last ROC garrison in Manchuria, in Yingkou, retreated in the face of a PLA advance.
	15 December	Huaihai Campaign: The PLA encircled an ROC army in Xuzhou.
1949	21 January	Chiang resigned the presidency of the Republic of China due to military failures and under pressure from his vice president Li Zongren, who succeeded him as acting president.
	31 January	Pingjin Campaign: The PLA took Beijing.
	23 April	Chinese Civil War: The PLA conquered the ROC capital Nanjing. The ROC moved its capital to Guangzhou.
	1 October	Mao declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

• 1793: Macartney Embassy The British ambassador George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney was introduced to the Qianlong Emperor.