Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Chiang Kai-shek’s forces and allied groups violently suppressed Communist and labor organizations in Shanghai. The purge ended the first United Front and drove the Chinese Communist Party toward armed...

Communist forces rebelled against the Nationalist government in Nanchang. Although militarily defeated, the uprising became a founding reference for the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist...

Communist representatives proclaimed a Soviet republic in Ruijin, Jiangxi, as Nationalist encirclement campaigns intensified. The experiment built institutions and mobilized rural constituencies,...

The Red Army began its strategic retreat from its base in Jiangxi after Nationalist encirclement campaigns. The march caused enormous losses but helped consolidate Mao’s leadership and became a...

Generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng detained Chiang Kai-shek to press him to prioritize resistance to Japan. The crisis led to renewed cooperation between Nationalists and Communists, although...

Japanese troops captured Nanjing, followed by mass killing, sexual violence, and looting. The massacre remains central to Chinese public memory of imperial aggression and wartime suffering. Historical...

Japan announced it would accept the Allied surrender terms, ending the Pacific War. In China, the end of Japanese occupation opened a struggle over political authority and control of territory;...

The UN Charter entered into force, establishing the postwar international organization in which the Republic of China held a permanent Security Council seat. China’s later representation dispute at...

Fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces escalated after the fragile postwar truce collapsed. The civil war determined who would govern mainland China and shaped the geopolitical division...

The Communist victory in northeast China gave its forces control of Manchuria’s industrial base and a large arsenal. It shifted the civil-war balance decisively and laid material foundations for the...