Chinese/Japanese Hostilities Timeline.
1894-5 First Sino-Japanese war - fledging Japanese navy defeats Chinese fleet off.
Yalu River. Fortress of Port Arthur (Lushun) stormed. After the war, Japan .
seizes Taiwan and S. Manchuria.
1910 Annexation of Korea.
1926 Hirohito becomes Emperor.
1931 Sept.18 - "The Mukden Incident" - Bomb explodes under Japanese-owned .
express train in Manchuria (planted by Japanese secret agents); Japanese troops .
proceed to occupy all Manchuria.
1932 Chinese boycott of Japanese goods leads to the "Battle of Shanghai"; Japanese .
aircraft carriers in action for the first time. League of Nations condemns .
Japanese aggression in Manchuria.
1933 Japan withdraws from League of Nations.
1934 Pu Yi - former emperor of China - becomes puppet emperor of Manchuria.
1937 July - "The China Incident" -- a skirmish between Japan and Chinese troops at .
the Marco Polo Bridge (Luguoqiao), near Peking, sparks off a full-scale invasion .
of China. Nanking Massacre .
August - Japanese bombers make the first trans-oceanic raids in history - from .
Taiwan and Kyushu to Nanking and Shanghai.
Nov.- Imperial General Headquarters established in Tokyo (the Emperor, the .
Chiefs of the Army, and Naval General Staffs).
Dec. - The Nanking Massacre (Rape of Nan king) - the Chinese capital sacked .
by Japanese troops. The American gunboat USS Panay bombed and sunk near .
Nanking.
1938 Dec. - Japan proclaims a "New Order in East Asia".
1940 May - Chungking - war capital of China - bombed day and night by Japanese.
Sept. - Japanese troops occupy northern Indo-China. Japan signs Tripartite .
Pact with Germany and Italy.
1941 July - Japanese troops occupy southern French Indo-China.
Dec.