Modern Era
Siege of Lucknow (1857): The Residency Under Fire
The Residency held out and was evacuated after Campbell's relief in November 1857; the British recaptured Lucknow in March 1858.
Region
Asia
Modern Era
Indian Rebellion of 1857: The Great Uprising Against Company Rule
The uprising was suppressed, and in 1858 the British Crown took over the government of India from the East India Company.
Modern Era
French Conquest of Vietnam (1858-1885): Birth of French Indochina
France annexed Cochinchina as a colony and imposed protectorates on Annam and Tonkin, which became the core of French Indochina from 1887.
Modern Era
British Raj (1858-1947): Crown Rule in India Explained
The British Crown ruled India directly for almost ninety years, building a centralised colonial state that lasted until independence and partition in 1947.
Modern Era
Burning of the Old Summer Palace (1860): Yuanmingyuan Destroyed
The imperial gardens were looted by British and French troops and burned by the British, and the Qing court signed the Convention of Peking days later.
Modern Era
Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895): Qing China Modernises
China gained arsenals, shipyards, mines, telegraphs and a modern navy, but defeat by Japan in 1894-1895 exposed the limits of reform without deeper institutional change.
Modern Era
Third Battle of Nanking (1864): The Fall of the Taiping Capital
Qing forces captured Nanjing on 19 July 1864, destroying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as a state; much of the city's population was killed and the city was plundered.
Modern Era
King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910): Modernising Siam Under Pressure
Siam became a centralised modern kingdom, abolished slavery and remained independent, though it ceded large border territories to France and Britain.
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.
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
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
Aceh War (1873-1904): The Dutch Struggle to Conquer Sumatra
The Netherlands conquered Aceh after three decades of war at great human cost, though local resistance continued for years afterwards.