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East Asia

500 BCE – 1900 CE

China, Japan, Korea, and their neighbours together — the shared and competing histories of the East Asian world.

1426 events · 2326 people · 15 eras

Key events

1. Battle of the Hydaspes325 BCE
   The Battle of the Hydaspes also known as Battle of Jhelum, or First Battle of Jhelum, was fought between the Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great and the Pauravas under Porus in May of 326 BC. It took place on the banks of the Hydaspes River in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan, as part of Alexander's Indian campaign. In what was possibly their most costly engagement, the Macedonian army secured a decisive victory over the Pauravas and captured Porus. Large areas of Punjab were subsequently absorbed into the Macedonian Empire; Alexander spared Porus and made him a satrap, effectively reinstating him as the region's ruler.
2. Battle of Talas751 CE
   The Battle of Talas was an armed confrontation between the Abbasid Caliphate along with the Tibetan Empire against the Tang dynasty and its allies in 751. In July of that year, the Tang and Abbasid armies clashed at the Talas River over control of the regions surrounding the Syr Darya. The Tang army under Gao Xianzhi was defeated by the Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih and Karluk mercenaries. Sources differ on whether the Karluks defected to the Abbasids or if they were Abbasid allies from the start. The defeat marked the end of Tang influence in Transoxiana and halted Tang westward expansion.
3. Ōnin War1467 CE
   The Ōnin War , also known as the Upheaval of Ōnin and Ōnin-Bunmei war, was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. Ōnin refers to the Japanese era during which the war started; the war ended during the Bunmei era. A dispute between a high official, Hosokawa Katsumoto, and a regional lord, Yamana Sōzen, escalated into a nationwide civil war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyō in many regions of Japan.
4. 1556 Shaanxi earthquake1556 CE
   One of the deadliest earthquakes in history occurred in the early morning of 23 January, 1556 in Huaxian, Shaanxi, during the Ming dynasty.
5. Japanese invasions of Korea1592 CE
   The Imjin War was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596 between the conflicts, followed by a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War. The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern provinces.
6. Battle of Sekigahara1600 CE
   The Battle of Sekigahara was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 in what is now Gifu Prefecture, Japan, at the end of the Sengoku period.
7. Siege of Osaka1614 CE
   The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages, the winter campaign and the summer campaign, it lasted from 1614 to 1615. The siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The end of the conflict is sometimes called the Genna Armistice , because the era name was changed from Keichō to Genna immediately following the siege.
8. Battle of Plassey1757 CE
   The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the betrayal of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.
9. Second Opium War1856 CE
   The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or Arrow War, was fought between the United Kingdom and France against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major conflict in the Opium Wars, which were fought over the right to import opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing and the forced legalisation of the opium trade. It caused many Chinese officials to believe that conflicts with the Western powers were no longer traditional wars, but part of a looming national crisis.
10. Convention of Kanagawa1864 CE
    The Convention of Kanagawa, also known as the Kanagawa Treaty or the Japan–US Treaty of Peace and Amity , was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate on March 31, 1854. Signed under threat of force, it effectively meant the end of Japan's 220-year-old policy of national seclusion by opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American vessels. It also ensured the safety of American castaways and established the position of an American consul in Japan. The treaty precipitated the signing of similar treaties establishing diplomatic relations with other Western powers.
11. Sino-French War1884 CE
    The Sino-French or Franco-Chinese War, also known as the Tonkin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and the Qing dynasty for influence in Vietnam. There was no declaration of war.
12. First Sino-Japanese War1894 CE
    The First Sino-Japanese War, or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily for influence over Korea. In China it is commonly known as the Jiawu War. After 6 to 7 months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ports of Lüshunkou and Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895 and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki two months later, ending the war.

Notable people

• Alexander the Great356 BCE – 323 BCE
• Winston Churchill1874 CE – 1965 CE
• Genghis Khan1162 CE – 1227 CE
• Qin Shi Huang259 BCE – 210 BCE
• Ashoka304 BCE – 232 BCE
• Victoria1819 CE – 1901 CE
• Akbar1542 CE – 1605 CE
• Plutarch40 CE – 120 CE
• Timur1336 CE – 1405 CE
• Sima Qian145 BCE – 86 BCE
• Franklin Pierce1804 CE – 1869 CE
• Wilhelm II1859 CE – 1941 CE

Cultural works

Eras spanning this view

Related atlas views

• China
• Japan

Explore more of the atlas

• Tang Dynasty China
• Three Kingdoms
• Heian Japan
• India
• Abbasid Baghdad
• Western Europe

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Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].