20th Century Chinese Timeline of Events

1895
 • Japan defeats the Chinese under the Qing Dynasty
   
1900  • Boxer Rebellion
 
1905
 • Confucian educational system is abandoned
 
1910
  

• Qing Dynasty collapses in 1911
• Republican China (Nationalist Regime) 1911-1949
• WWI (1914-1918)
• China declares war on Germany (1917)
1915
  
• May Fourth Movement (Begins May 4th, 1919)
• Peace Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28th, 1919
1920
 • Dr. Sun Yatsen. leader of the Nationalist Party (KMT) accepts Soviet aid (early 1920s)
 
1925
• May 30th Incident - 3,000 students protest British and Japanese atrocities (1925)
• Dr. Sun Yatsen dies (1925)
• Chiang Kaishek assumes leadership of KMT and launches Northern Expedition (1925)
• Autumn Harvest Uprising - armed rural insurrection staged by peasants and led by Mao Zedong (1927)
1930
  
 
1935
  
• "Marco Polo" incident- Japanese invasion of China proper - 20 million Chinese deaths (1937-1945)
1940
  
• WWII (1939-1945)
1945
  
• Mao Zedong assumes leadership- People's Republic of China (Communist regime) 1949-present
1950
• Korean War (1950-1953)
1955
  
• The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)
Man-made famine ('59-'61) results in 30 million deaths
1960
  
China's break with Soviet Union completed (1962)
1965
  
• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
1970
  
 
1975
• Mao Zedong's Death (1976)
• Deng Xiaoping launches economic reform program (1978)
1980
  
 
1985
  
• Death of Hu Yaobang, former party leader- removed from office two years earlier after lending support to student protests for reform (April 15th, 1989)
• Bejing Spring- 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy student and worker protests crushed by the PLA upon order by the Chinese government (April-May, 1989)
1990
  
• Jiang Zemin elected as President (March 1993)
1995
  
• Death of Deng Xiaoping (Feb 19th, 1997)
• Falun Gong demonstration- more than 10,000 members of this sect stage a peaceful protest outside the Bejing compound where China's Communist leaders live and work (April 25th, 1999)
2000