Lin Zexu Burns Opium
March 18, 1839
Qing commissioner Lin Zexu, sent to Canton to stop the opium traffic, confiscated twenty thousand chests of British opium and destroyed them in a trench flushed with seawater and salt. He wrote a firm, polite letter to Queen Victoria asking her to stop the trade. She never answered. A war answered instead.
In context
Also in 1839 (4 other events on record)
- Daguerreotype Announced · Europe · Technology
- Tanzimat Edict · Middle East · Politics
- First Anglo-Afghan War · Central Asia · War
- Ranjit Singh Dies · South Asia · Politics
Before and after in East Asia
Before and after in Politics
- Before: 1838: Trail of Tears
- After: February 6, 1840: Treaty of Waitangi
Era
Industrial Age (1801–1900), one of 513 events from that era on Saeculum.