A calendar of Chinese history
20 events
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Death
Death of the Jiaqing Emperor
The Jiaqing Emperor dies on 2 September 1820. The son of the Qianlong Emperor, he took the throne in 1796 after his father's abdication, resisted the arrival of Europeans and their ideas, and harshly persecuted Catholics across the empire.
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Politics
Tianjing Incident
On 2 September 1856, an internal purge breaks out in Nanjing, capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, killing the East King Yang Xiuqing, the North King Wei Changhui, the Yan King Qin Rigang and more than 27,000 others. It is seen as the turning point that doomed the Taiping Rebellion.
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Death
Death of Yang Xiuqing
Yang Xiuqing, one of the organisers and commanders-in-chief of the Taiping Rebellion, is killed on 2 September 1856. Born in 1821, he was the East King of the Heavenly Kingdom.
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Event
Rock Springs Massacre
On 2 September 1885, in Rock Springs, Wyoming, white miners attack their Chinese co-workers: at least twenty-eight are killed, fifteen injured and several hundred driven out of town. The Union Pacific coal department had favoured hiring Chinese miners, who accepted lower wages, to the anger of the others.
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Politics
First elected Tibetan assembly
The first assembly of elected Tibetan deputies takes office on 2 September 1960. The 14th Dalai Lama had announced the plan for it in January of that year, during a visit to Bodh Gaya in India.
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Politics
First election of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile
The Tibetan Parliament in Exile, created at the initiative of the 14th Dalai Lama and based in Dharamshala, India, holds its first election. Tibetans in exile mark this date as Democracy Day.
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Birth
Birth of Anthony Wong Chau-sang
Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang is born on 2 September 1961. Born to an English father and a Chinese mother, he was the first actor to win the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor for a Category III film, with The Untold Story, and won it again in 1999 for Beast Cops.
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Birth
Birth of Zhang Zhan
Lawyer and whistleblower Zhang Zhan is born on 2 September 1983 in Xianyang, Shaanxi province. Sentenced on 28 December 2020 to four years in prison over videos she posted from Wuhan at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, she is a laureate of the Reporters Without Borders press freedom award.
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Birth
Birth of Zhang Fakui
General Zhang Fakui is born on 2 September 1896. A Kuomintang officer, he fought the warlords, the Imperial Japanese Army and then the Chinese Communist Party, before moving to Hong Kong after the communist victory.
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Birth
Birth of Wei Guoqing
Officer and political leader Wei Guoqing is born on 2 September 1913. Of Zhuang origin, he governed Guangxi from 1958 to 1975 and headed the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army from 1977 to 1982.
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Birth
Birth of Liu Baiyu
Writer Liu Baiyu is born in Beijing on 2 September 1916. A communist, he shaped Chinese literature through his opposition to what he called Western bourgeois values.
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Event
Kantō Massacre
In the weeks following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Japanese vigilantes, military and police kill an estimated 6,000 people in the Kantō region of Japan, mostly ethnic Koreans but also Chinese residents, with the tacit or explicit approval of parts of the Japanese government.
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Birth
Birth of Michelle Yim
Hong Kong actress Michelle Yim, whose real name is Yim Wai-ling, is born on 2 September 1955. She is known for her role in the drama Moonlight Resonance.
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Birth
Birth of Hu Mei
Director and producer Hu Mei is born in Beijing on 2 September 1958. A 1982 graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, she belongs to the Fifth Generation, alongside Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang.
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Birth
Birth of Ron Ng
Hong Kong actor and singer Ron Ng is born on 2 September 1979. He rose to fame in 2003 with the television drama Triumph in the Skies.
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Birth
Birth of Danson Tang
Actor, presenter and singer Danson Tang is born on 2 September 1984 in Keelung, Taiwan.
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Birth
Birth of Li Landi
Actress, singer and model Li Landi is born on 2 September 1999. She is known for the dramas My Huckleberry Friends and The Starry Love.
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Death
Death of Zhu Su
Zhu Su, a Ming prince, physician and botanist, dies on 2 September 1425. The fifth son of the Hongwu Emperor, made Prince of Zhou in 1378 and assigned to Kaifeng, he was banished to Yunnan in 1389, then stripped of his title and exiled again under the Jianwen Emperor.
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Birth
Birth of Leonard Appleyard
British diplomat Leonard Appleyard is born on 2 September 1938. He served as British Ambassador to China and died in 2020.
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Event
Opening of Mudanjiang Hailang International Airport
Mudanjiang Hailang International Airport opens on 2 September 1985. It serves the city of Mudanjiang in the People's Republic of China.