Arrow Incident
October 8, 1856
Qing officials boarded a Chinese-owned lorcha flying, illegally, a British flag and arrested its crew. Britain declared war for the second time in fifteen years. The Second Opium War would bring French, American, and Russian appetite to the feast, and end with the sack of the Summer Palace and another round of unequal treaties.
In context
Also in 1856 (4 other events on record)
- Bessemer Steel Process · Europe · Technology
- Sumner Caned in Senate · North America · Politics
- Treaty of Paris · Europe · Politics
- Flaubert's Madame Bovary · Europe · Culture
Before and after in East Asia
Before and after in War
Era
Industrial Age (1801–1900), one of 513 events from that era on Saeculum.