Nanchang Uprising begins

Japan delivered demands seeking expanded rights and influence in China, including in Shandong and Manchuria. The episode intensified Chinese nationalism and highlighted how imperial rivalry threatened...

Students in Beijing protested the Versailles settlement’s transfer of former German rights in Shandong to Japan and criticized Chinese diplomacy. The movement spread into a broader cultural and...

Delegates convened in Shanghai (and later moved to Jiaxing) for the founding congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The party’s later victory reshaped China’s state and its position in the world....

Police in Shanghai fired on demonstrators protesting the killing of a Chinese worker and foreign-controlled labor conditions. The resulting strikes and boycotts became a major anti-imperialist...

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 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...

A clash near Beijing escalated into full-scale war between China and Japan. Chinese resistance tied the national struggle to the wider anti-fascist war, while Japanese occupation brought mass...

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...