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Guangzhou

capital city of Guangdong Province, China

29 dated entries naming Guangzhou, drawn from 29 separate years between 214 BCE and 2004 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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3rd century BC

  • 214 BCEPanyu (present-day Guangzhou, or Canton) is established as a city.source

7th century

  • 671Yijing, Chinese Buddhist monk, travels by boat from Guangzhou, and visits the capital of the partly Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya in Palembang (Indonesia). He stays for 6 months to study Sanskrit grammar and the Malay language.source

8th century

  • 758An Lushan Rebellion: The Chinese seaport of Guangzhou is sacked by Muslim and Persian raiders. The port is shut down for the next 5 decades, while foreign vessels dock at Hanoi (modern Vietnam) instead. Guangzhou thrives again, once it is reopened to foreign trade in the early 9th century.source

9th century

  • 851Suleiman al-Tajir, Muslim merchant and traveller, visits China during the Tang Dynasty. He observes the manufacturing of Chinese porcelain at Guangzhou, and writes of his admiration for its transparent quality. Suleiman also describes the mosque at Guangzhou, its granaries, its local government administration, some of its written records, and the treatment of travellers, along with the use of ceramics, rice wine, and tea (approximate date).source
  • 879Guangzhou Massacre: The Chinese rebel leader Huang Chao besieges the seaport in Guangzhou, and slaughters many of its inhabitants and foreign merchants. According to sources, the death toll ranges from 120,000 to 200,000 foreigners.source

16th century

  • 1513May – Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares and his crew land on Lintin Island, in the Pearl River estuary, near Guangzhou, becoming the first Europeans to arrive in China by sea.source
  • 1516Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of the wife of Christopher Columbus, commands an expedition from Portuguese Malacca to land on the shores of mainland southern China, and trade with Chinese merchants at Guangzhou, during the Ming Dynasty.source
  • 1517June 17 – A fleet of eight ships of the navy of Portugal, commanded by Fernão Pires de Andrade and dispatched from Goa by Portuguese India's Governor Lopo Soares de Albergaria on orders of King Manuel I, arrives in China at Canton (now Guangzhou) and brings the Ambassador Tomé Pires and his diplomatic corps to start trade and foreign relations.source
  • 1523May 31 – Following the Battle of Sincouwaan at sea between the ships of the Chinese Empire and the Kingdom of Portugal, the Malay ambassador to China reluctantly departs from Guangzhou to present letters to the Portuguese governors of the occupied Malacca Sultanate, demanding the restoration of the deposed Sultan. Though fearing execution by the Portuguese, the messengers are allowed to leave. They return in September with a plea for help from the Malay Sultan, whose territory is under attack from the Europeans.source

17th century

  • 1637June 27 – The first English venture to China is attempted by Captain John Weddell, who sails into port in Macau and Canton during the late Ming dynasty with six ships. The voyages are for trade, which is dominated here by the Portuguese (at this time combined with the power of Spain). He brings 38,421 pairs of eyeglasses, perhaps the first recorded European-made eyeglasses to enter China.source
  • 1647January 20 – A small Qing force led by Li Chengdong captures Guangzhou and kills the Zhu Yuyue, the Shaowu Emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty in China.source
  • 1651November 24 – In China, Qing dynasty forces led by Shang Kexi capture the city of Guangzhou from the Southern Ming and then carry out a massacre of the population, killing as many as 70,000 people over 11 days ending on December 5.source
  • 1684The British East India Company receives Chinese permission to build a trading station at Canton. Tea sells in Europe for less than a shilling a pound, but the import duty of 5 shillings makes it too expensive for most English people to afford; hence smuggled tea is drunk much more than legally imported tea.source
  • 1693China concentrates all its foreign trade on Canton; European ships are forbidden to land anywhere else.source

18th century

  • 1720The Kangxi Emperor announces that all western businessmen in China can trade only in Guangzhou.source
  • 1738China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the Cohong in Guangzhou to trade.source
  • 1793June – The Macartney Embassy, a British diplomatic mission to China led by George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, reaches Canton, but will be rebuffed by the Qianlong Emperor.source

19th century

  • 1807September 7 – Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, arrives in Guangzhou (Canton).source
  • 1819November 3 – The becomes the first American warship to visit China, landing at Lintin Island, off of the coast of Canton.source
  • 1820March 3 – A fire in Guangzhou in China burns 15,000 houses and kills an undetermined number of people.source
  • 1822November 22 – A fire in Guangzhou (Canton) kills 500 people, and destroys 13,070 homes and several European-owned businesses.source
  • 1832July 1 – Global conglomerate Jardine Matheson is founded in Canton (modern day Guangzhou) in Qing dynasty China by Scottish merchants.source
  • 1839June 3 – Destruction of opium at Humen begins, casus belli for Britain to open the 3-year First Opium War against Qing dynasty China. A rapid rise in the sale of opium in China to over 40,000 chests (~56,000 kg per annum) has caused the Chinese government to dispatch scholar-official Lin Zexu to Guangzhou to deal with the growing problem of opium addiction.source
  • 1845May 25 – A theater fire in Canton, China, kills 1,670.source
  • 1857December 28 – Second Anglo-Chinese War: 2nd Battle of Canton – British and French forces begin an assault on the Qing dynasty Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou).source
  • 1894May – Third plague pandemic: Bubonic plague breaks out in the Tai Ping Shan area of Hong Kong (by the end of the year, the death toll is 2,552 people); it also breaks out this year in Canton.source

20th century

  • 1925May 1 – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the world's largest trade union organisation, is founded in Guangzhou, Republic of China.source
  • 1949October 17 – Chinese communist troops take Guangzhou.source

21st century

  • 2004August 5 – Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport begins operation in Guangzhou, China.source

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