The Chinese Communists in the People’s Liberation Army had been fighting the second stage of a long and costly civil war against the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, known as the Kuomintang, since shortly after the end of the Second World War.
The First Opium War formally ended when Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanking, the first of the ‘unequal treaties’.
By the time the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 an estimated minimum of 400,000 people had died through torture, execution, or suicide.
The area governed by Kublai Khan was enormous and swept from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Black Sea in the west, and from Afghanistan in the south to Siberia in the north.
The United States table tennis team heralded the era of ‘ping pong diplomacy’ by becoming the first official American delegation to visit China in 20 years.
Scientists have since judged that the earthquake had a magnitude of around 8.0 on the Richter scale, and have had no reason to question the traditional estimates of around 830,000 deaths.
The Chinese government appealed to the League of Nations for assistance, and the League promptly passed a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Japanese troops.
On 4 August 221 Lady Zhen, the wife of Cao Pi of Wei of the Three Kingdoms, died.
On the evening of the 3rd June 1989, the People’s Liberation Army began firing on protesters taking part in the student-led Tiananmen Square protests.
The world’s earliest dated printed book, a copy of the Diamond Sutra, was created in China.
28th June 2015
3rd August 2020
9th November 2019
1st September 2018
