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1807
Englishman Robert Morrison, first Protestant missionary to China at Canton

1830
Elijah Coleman Bridgman, first American missionary to China, arrives at Canton

1832
May 21: Hudson Taylor born

1840's
Karl GÆtzlaff works in China

1843-1860
American and British Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians send missionaries to China treaty ports

1850
Taylor declares China hopes

1853
September: Taylor departs for China

1854
March: Taylor lands at Shanghai; December: first inland journey

1857
Taylor proposes to Maria Dyer; resigns from Chinese Evangelization Society; Ningpo mission started

1858
Taylor and Maria marry

1861
An exhausted Taylor and his family depart for rest in England

1862
Taylor qualifies as midwife

1865
Taylor resolves to lead China Inland Mission (cim); writes China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims

1866
Lammermuir sails with Taylor, his family, and 16 cim missionaries

1868
Lewis Nicol dismissed from CIM; anti-foreign riot in Yangchow injures several missionaries

1869
House of Lords debates value of missions to China

1870
Maria Taylor dies

1871
Taylor marries Jennie Faulding

1875
Taylor appeals for 18 pioneers to go to nine interior provinces; April: recovers from paralysis; July: China's Millions Vol. 1, No. 1, published

1876-1880
18 CIM missionaries penetrate nine interior provinces

1885
"Cambridge Seven" depart for China

1886
Taylor appeals for 100 new missionaries

1887
CIM committees in London and China clash over control of the mission; 100 new missionaries accepted

1900
Boxer Rebellion-58 cim missionaries and 21 children among those murdered; Taylor in Switzerland recuperating from illness

1903
D. E. Hoste appointed general director of cim upon Taylor's retirement

1904
Jennie Faulding dies

1905
Hudson Taylor dies; abolition of old examination system opens way for mission schools

1910
World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh

1926-27
Nearly all 8,000 Protestant missionaries flee during chaos of Northern Expedition

1934
CIM missionaries John and Betty Stam executed

1941-1946
Most missionaries interred or evacuated but return to China after WWII

1951-52
Wholesale evacuation of missionaries; last of CIM leaves July 20, 1953

1839-42
First Opium War ends with Treaty of Nanking: five treaty ports open to foreigners; Hong Kong ceded to British

1851-1864
Taiping Rebellion

1858-1860
Tientsin and Peking treaties end Opium Wars: more rights granted to foreigners, including right to travel anywhere inland

1877-78
Worst of the great Shantung-Shansi famine

1883-85
War with France over Annam (Vietnam)

1894-95
Sino-Japanese War: China loses Taiwan to Japan and Korea to independence

1897-98
Various provinces ceded to Britain, France, Germany, and Russia

1898
Failure of radical reform

1900
Boxer Rebellion

1911-1912
Revolution; Republic of China established; Kuomintang Party (KMT) inaugurated

1919
May 4th Student Movement

1921
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded

1926-1927
Chiang Kai-shek launches Northern Expedition to unite China under KMT, and purges CCP from its ranks

1934
Long March: CCP forces under Mao Tse-tung retreat from KMT

1937
Open war with Japan begins; KMT and CCP fight Japan together

1946
KMT and CCP resume civil war

1949
October: People's Democratic Republic of China declared

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