Asian History - Timeline, Traditions & Culture

Indian school children pay homage to a portrait of Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi to mark the 70th anniversary of Gandhi's assassination. Gandhi was on the way to a prayer meeting in the Indian capital when he was shot three times in the chest and head on January 30, 1948.

Assassination of Gandhi

Passive Resistance For some 50 years, Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, and called “Mahatma” (“great-souled” in Sanskrit), fought for India’s independence from Britain, practicing civil disobedience and peaceful protests that included fasting, boycotts and marches. He was an adherent of satyagraha (“truth-force”), a passive political resistance he defined as “a weapon of the strongest […]

Larry Itliong

Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor leader who organized West Coast farm workers, starting in the 1930s. He became well-known in the 1960s for spearheading the Delano grape strike and teaming with labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to demand farm workers’ rights. The five-year strike won better pay and benefits for agricultural […]

Tiananmen Square Protests

Background to Unrest The protests resulted from long-simmering frustration with the limits on political freedom in China—given its one-party form of government, with the Communist Party holding sway—and ongoing economic troubles. Although China’s government had instituted a number of reforms in the 1980s that established a limited form of capitalism in the country, poor and […]

China: Timeline

It’s hard to say how old Chinese culture actually is, but it’s one of the oldest that still has a presence in the modern world. Legends claim that the earliest rulers in China were the Xia Dynasty, from 2100 to 1600 B.C., with Yu as the first emperor, but there is little proof that the […]

Forbidden City WatchtowerBEIJING, CHINA - MAY 26: The of Forbidden City watchtower is seen on May 26, 2014 in Beijing, China. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. (Photo by Xiao Lu Chu/Getty Images)

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the final imperial dynasty in China, lasting from 1644 to 1912. It was an era noted for its initial prosperity and tumultuous final years.

5:35 minTV-PG

How the Kim Dynasty Took Over North Korea

North Korea hasn’t always been under the totalitarian rule of the Kim regime. Foreign enablers and internal strife have completely reshaped the region over the last 100+ years, transforming a once-peaceful monarchy into the oppressive dictatorship we know today.

Watch now

Russo-Japanese War

‘World War Zero’ Russia was already a significant world power in the early 20th century, with vast territories in Eastern Europe and central Asia under its control, and Japan was widely viewed as the dominant force in Asia at the time. Therefore, the war garnered significant global attention and its ramifications were felt long after […]

Allied French and English troops storm through a breech in the fortifications of Canton (Guangzhou), China. The event occurred during the Taiping Rebellion, a war begun by a Kwangsi district schoolmaster and mystic Hong Xiuquan, 38, who believed himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

Taiping Rebellion

Hong Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan, born in 1814 in Guanlubu, Guangdong, had failed multiple civil service exams when, in 1837, he returned home and went to bed, complaining of sickness. In a feverish state, Hong hallucinated a journey to a heavenly land to the east where his father revealed that demons were destroying humankind. Wielding a […]

South Korea

HISTORY OF KOREA Around A.D. 668, several competing kingdoms were unified into a single dominion on the Korean Peninsula. Successive regimes maintained Korean political and cultural independence for more than a thousand years; the last of these ruling kingdoms would be the Choson Dynasty (1392-1910). After surviving invasions by Japan at the end of the […]

Han Dynasty

China’s ancient Han Dynasty was known for its promotion of Confucianism and opening the Silk Road trade route to Europe, permanently altering the course of Chinese history.

North Korea

38th Parallel In 1910, Japan formally annexed the Korean Peninsula, which it had occupied five years earlier following the Russo-Japanese War. Over the next 35 years of colonial rule, the country modernized and industrialized significantly, but many Koreans suffered brutal repression at the hands of Japan’s military regime. During World War II, Japan sent many […]

3:33 minTV-PG

How Did Emperor Hirohito Respond to the Atomic Bomb Attacks?

After the devastating bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the leadership of Japanese Emperor Hirohito was put to the test.

Watch now