The Arrow incident
1856 · Event
Chinese police board a smuggling ship flying an expired British flag and arrest its crew — and on this pretext Britain bombards Canton and, with France, opens the Second Opium War. Gladstone and the Commons opposition call the war unjust; Palmerston calls an election on it and wins.
On these timelines: The Opium Wars, China, Master, United Kingdom (combined), British Empire
More from The Opium Wars
- Opium Wars (1839)
- Lin Zexu destroys the opium at Humen (1839)
- Second Opium War (1856)
- Britain takes Hong Kong (1841)
- Burning of the Summer Palace (1860)
- The Convention of Peking (1860)
- The Treaty of Tientsin (1858)
- The iron steamer Nemesis shreds the war junks (1841)
Around 1856
- Taiping Rebellion (1851)
- Crimean War (1853)
- Wars of German Unification (1864)
- Italian unification (Risorgimento) (1859)
- American Civil War (1861)
- Revolutions of 1848 (1848)
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1857)
- On the Origin of Species (1859)
- Pasteur develops germ theory of disease (1861)
- Perry Expedition to Japan (1853)