Chronology of Events

-551 to -473
Confucius -philosopher, historian, and educator. In 1974 a campaign of the Cultural Revolution denounced his ideas, especially his conceptions of REN (benevolence, love) and LI (civilized social order).

-221 to -206
Qin Dynasty. Qinshihuang made himself the first HUANGDI (Emperor) in China. Qinshihuang was notorious for burying alive dissident intellectuals, burning books and using forced labor to build his palace and tomb. Mao Zedong (1893-1976, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party), in 1958 and during the Cultural Revolution, reversed the traditional views on Qinshihuang. He spoke admirably of Qinshihuang's character.

1840
The "Opium War" began between China and Britain.

1850s-1890s
The "Self-strengthening movement" , dedicated to the promotion of western technology, began.

1911
Overthrow of the Qing dynasty. The Republic of China proclaimed.

1919
The May Fourth New Cultural Movement, an attack against traditional Chinese culture and a promotion of western culture, began.

1937-1945
The Japanese invaded China.

1949
The Communist Party established the People's Republic of China.

1956
The Completion of the transformation to "Socialist Ownership." Private businesses were prohibited.

1957
More than 550,000 intellectuals were labeled Rightists, a category reserved for the "enemy". Many were forced to leave their positions in the cities.

1958-1959
The Great Leap Forward, an attempt to achieve rapid industrialization, led to serious economic problems.

1960-1962
Nationwide famine. The number of people who died in this famine estimated to be 30-40 million.

1966
May 16: Mao Zedong issued a Circular from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, launching the Cultural Revolution.

June 1: Mao ordered the broadcast of a ¡°big character poster¡± originally posted at Beijing University. Regular classes officially ceased in all colleges and high schools. Students were encouraged to attack school authorities with ¡°big characters posters.¡±

June 2: A group of students from the high school attached to Qinghua University displayed a poster entitled "Pledge to fight to the death to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat! Pledge to fight to the death to defend Mao Zedong's Thought!" . They announced that they were the "Red Guards of Mao's Thought."

June 18: The Party and State Council announced to abolish the college entrance examination.

August 1: Mao wrote a letter in support of a group of Red Guards. Subsequently, students throughout China formed Red Guard units.

August 5: Bian Zhongyun, principal of the Girls Middle School attached to Beijing Teachers University, was beaten to death by students. She was the first victim killed by the Red Guards in Beijing. In the summer of 1966, many educators were murdered by their students on campus. The Red Guards also attacked residents outside schools. From August 20 to September 30 in Beijing alone, more than 1,700 people were beaten to death by the Red Guards and more than 85,000 residents were forced to leave the city.

August 18: Mao met with one million Red Guards in Tiananmen Square. A Red Guard from the Girls Middle School attached to Beijing Teachers University presented an armband to Mao on the top of Tiananmen Gate. From August 18 to November 26, on eight separate occasions, Mao assembles a total of eleven million Red Guards in Beijing.

Starting from late August, the Red Guards initiated two campaigns: (1) The Campaign to Destroy the Four Olds (old ideals, culture, customs and habits). The names of streets were changed, books burnt and temples razed. (2) In the campaign to establish a revolutionary network, Red Guards traveled around the country using free transportation, and attacked local authorities as ¡°capitalist roaders.¡± Factory workers formed their ¡°rebelling organizations¡± after the example set by students.

1967
January: With Mao¡¯s support, ¡°rebelling organizations¡± in Shanghai seized power from local authorities. Similar actions are taken nationwide. New authorities called ¡°Three-in-One Revolutionary Committees¡± were established in each province, city and work unit. ¡°Three-in-One¡± meant that leaders of mass organizations, army representatives and leading cadres of the revolutionary formed the committee.

1967-1969
In the process of ¡°seizing power¡± and establishing Revolutionary Committees, the President of the People's Republic of China, Liu Shaoqi, was imprisoned and tortured to death.

The factious conflicts between the ¡°rebelling organizations¡± resulted in casualties from 1967-1968.

1968
The Cleansing Class Ranks campaign. Many people were detained for months or even years in temporary jails established in each work unit by the Revolutionary Committee. Torture occurred in public and behind locked doors. Those who were not able to bear the prolonged torture committed suicide. At the Girls Middle School attached to Beijing Teachers University, three teachers committed suicide.

The worship of Mao Zedong became increasingly intense and reaches its second peak, the first being in the summer of 1966. Reading Mao¡¯s Book became a one-hour-per-day routine throughout China. Massive quantities of Mao's badges and statues were produced and distributed.

July: Mao sent Worker-Soldier Propaganda Teams to all schools. All student organizations were dismissed and students were sent to the countryside for ¡°reeducation.¡±

1969
The Cleansing Class Ranks campaign continues.

April: The Chinese Communist Party convened its Ninth Party Congress. (The Eighth Party Congress was held in 1956.) Mao¡¯s wife Jiang Qing, who was called the ¡°flag-holder of the Cultural Revolution¡±, became a member of the Politburo. Lin Biao, a military general, was described as Mao¡¯s successor in the new Party constitution. (Lin Biao died in a mysterious plane crash on September 13, 1971, and was soon thereafter denounced as a ¡°counter-revolutionary conspirator.¡±)

September: Most universities and colleges were ordered to move from the cities ostensibly in order to ¡°prepare for a war.¡±

1970-1971
The One Strike, Three-Anti campaign. More than 280,000 people were arrested as ¡°active counterrevolutionaries.¡± Some received the death penalty for criticizing Mao and the Cultural Revolution.

1973
The campaign to ¡°Denounce Lin Biao and Confucius¡± was launched. The "Popularization of the Models of Revolutionary Art Work Campaign¡± was launched.

1975
Launching of the campaign to learn the Theory of the Proletarian Dictatorship and to Restrict Bourgeois Rights that referred to ¡°commodity production¡± and so on.

1976
September 9: Mao Zedong died.

October 6: Mao¡¯s wife Jiang Qing and other three men, the so-called ¡°Gang of Four,¡± were arrested.

1977
August: Hua Guofeng, the new Chairman of the Party, declared that the Cultural Revolution was finished.

1978
Two years after Mao¡¯s death, the Party cautiously began to repudiate the Cultural Revolution.