Early Modern
Battle of Shanhai Pass (1644): Wu Sangui Lets the Qing In
Decisive victory for Wu Sangui and the Qing; Li Zicheng abandoned Beijing and the Manchus took the capital.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Fall of Beijing (1644): Li Zicheng and the End of the Ming
Li Zicheng's Shun regime captured Beijing and the last Ming emperor died by suicide; six weeks later the Manchu Qing took the city.
Early Modern
Battle of Marston Moor (1644): Royalist Defeat in the North
Decisive victory for the allied Parliamentarian and Scottish armies; York surrendered and the Royalists lost the north of England.
Early Modern
Queue Order (1645): The Qing Head-Shaving Edict Explained
The Manchu queue became compulsory for Han Chinese men; resistance was crushed, and the hairstyle lasted until the fall of the Qing in 1912.
Early Modern
Yangzhou Massacre (1645): The Qing Sack of a Ming Loyalist City
Qing forces took Yangzhou, killed Shi Kefa and massacred much of the population; Nanjing surrendered weeks later.
Early Modern
New Model Army (1645): Parliament's Professional Fighting Force
The army won the First and Second Civil Wars, purged Parliament, brought the king to trial and dominated government until the Restoration of 1660.
Early Modern
Battle of Naseby (1645): The New Model Army Breaks the King
Decisive Parliamentarian victory; the king's main army was destroyed and the Royalist cause never recovered.
Early Modern
Putney Debates (1647): Levellers, Soldiers and the Right to Vote
No agreement was reached; the debates ended when Charles I escaped from Hampton Court, and the army leadership suppressed Leveller unrest.
Early Modern
Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1657): The Cossack Revolt in Ukraine
The revolt created a Cossack state, the Hetmanate, in central Ukraine, which in 1654 accepted the protection of the Russian tsar, setting off a long war that divided Ukraine between Russia and Poland.
Early Modern
The Fronde (1648–1653): France's Civil Wars Against Mazarin
The revolts collapsed; Louis XIV returned to Paris in 1652 and Mazarin in 1653, and royal authority emerged stronger.
Early Modern
Peace of Westphalia (1648): Treaties That Ended Two Wars
The Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War ended; Dutch independence was recognised and France and Sweden gained territory, but the Franco-Spanish war continued until 1659.
Early Modern
Siege of Candia (1648-1669): Crete's 21-Year Ottoman Siege
Ottoman victory; Venice surrendered Candia in September 1669 and the Ottomans held Crete until the nineteenth century.