Modern Era
Boshin War (1868-1869): The Civil War of the Meiji Restoration
The new imperial government defeated the shogunate and its northern allies, securing the Meiji Restoration and ending more than 260 years of Tokugawa rule.
Era · c. 1800 – 1945
Modern Era
Industry, science and global conflict: the century and a half that built the modern world.
Modern Era
Meiji Restoration (1868): Japan's Leap into the Modern World
The Tokugawa shogunate was abolished and a new government ruling in the emperor's name centralised Japan and launched rapid industrial, military and social modernisation.
Modern Era
Neuschwanstein Castle: Ludwig II's Fairy-Tale Fortress
A romantic castle left unfinished at Ludwig's death in 1886, opened to the public weeks later and now one of Europe's most visited monuments.
Modern Era
Red River Resistance (1869-1870): Louis Riel and the Metis
The Metis-led provisional government negotiated the Manitoba Act of 1870, which made Red River the new province of Manitoba, before a military expedition arrived and Riel fled.
Modern Era
Mendeleev's Periodic Table (1869): Ordering the Chemical Elements
Mendeleev's periodic system organised the elements by atomic weight and properties, predicted undiscovered elements and became the central framework of chemistry.
Modern Era
Siege of Paris (1870-1871): Balloons, Hunger and Surrender
Paris capitulated after about four months; an armistice on 28 January 1871 ended the main fighting of the Franco-Prussian War.
Modern Era
Battle of Sedan (1870): Napoleon III Captured by Prussia
Decisive German victory; Napoleon III and about 100,000 French soldiers surrendered, and the Second Empire collapsed two days later.
Modern Era
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871): Fall of the Second Empire
German victory; the French Second Empire fell, the German Empire was proclaimed and France ceded Alsace and part of Lorraine.
Modern Era
Paris Commune (1871): Revolution and the Bloody Week
The Commune was crushed by the army of the Versailles government; thousands of Parisians were killed and tens of thousands arrested.
Modern Era
Unification of Germany (1871): Bismarck and the German Empire
The German states except Austria were united as the German Empire under the Prussian king as German Emperor.
Modern Era
Iwakura Mission (1871-1873): Japan's Embassy to the West
The mission failed to revise the unequal treaties but gave Japan's leaders first-hand knowledge of Western states that shaped the Meiji reforms.
Modern Era
Stanley Meets Livingstone (1871): The Famous Encounter at Ujiji
Stanley found Livingstone alive at Ujiji, supplied him and made himself famous; Livingstone stayed in Africa and died there in 1873.