Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Opium smuggling to China skyrockets after the British East India Company monopol-
ises production and export of Indian opium.
1799
China's silver reserves drain rapidly as opium addiction sweeps through China. The
Qing emperor issues an edict banning opium trade in the country.
1841
British marines plant the Union flag on the western part of Hong Kong Island, claiming
the land for the British Crown.
1842
China cedes Hong Kong Island to Britain.
1860
Under the Convention of Peking, China cedes Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Is-
land to Britain, giving Britain complete control of Victoria Harbour and its approaches.
1894
Bubonic plague breaks out in Hong Kong, killing 2500 of mainly local Chinese; trade
suffers badly.
1895
Future Chinese national hero Sun Yatsen plots an insurrection in southern China from
his base in Hong Kong; it fails and the British ban Sun from the territory.
1898
China hands the New Territories to Britain in a 99-year lease, which begins on 1 July
1898 and ends at midnight on 30 June 1997.
1911
The colony's population expands as large groups of immigrants flee the Chinese Re-
volution on the mainland.
1937
Pouncing on a country weakened by a bloody civil war, Japan invades China; as many
as 750,000 mainlanders seek shelter in Hong Kong over the next three years.
