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Opening of the Suez Canal (1869)
Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt and the Sudan, formally opened the Suez Canal on November 17, 1869. Officially, the first ship to navigate through the canal was the imperial yacht of French Empress Eugenie, the L'Aigle, followed by the British ocean liner Delta. -
First Boer War (1880-81)
In 1880-81, the British fought a brief war against the Transvaal Boers in South Africa. The Boers had rebelled against British control and went on to inflict several stinging defeats during their successful fight for independence. -
Berlin Conference (1884-85)
The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, met on 15 November 1884, and after an adjournment concluded on 26 February 1885, with the signature of a General Act, regulating the European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. -
Shimonoseki Treaty (March-April 1895)
In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the conflict, China recognized the independence of Korea and ceded Taiwan, the adjoining Pescadores, and the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria. China also agreed to pay a large indemnity and to give Japan trading privileges on Chinese territory. -
Jameson Raid (December 1895-January 1896)
The Raid, led by Cecil Rhodes' lieutenant and confidant, Dr Jameson, was a crude attempt to settle the Transvaal problem of the 1890's by overthrowing Kruger's republic, with the help of the English-speaking Uitlanders of Johannesburg and the Rand, and establishing a pro-British government of some sort in its place. -
Kruger Telegram (January 1896)
The Kruger telegram was a message sent by Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II to Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic, on 3 January 1896. -
Spanish-American War (April-August 1898)
The Spanish-American War was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. -
Fashoda Incident (September 1898)
The Fashoda Incident was a series of territorial disputes in Africa between Great Britain and France. The disputes arose from the common desire of each country to link up its disparate colonial possessions in Africa. -
Second Boer War (1899-1902)
The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and Orange Free State) over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa. -
Formation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (January 1902)
This was an alliance that bound Britain and Japan to assist one another in safeguarding their respective interests in China and Korea. Directed against Russian expansionism in the Far East, it was a cornerstone of British and Japanese policy in Asia until after World War I. -
Russo-Japanese War (1904-05)
This war was a military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in East Asia, thereby becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. -
Treaty of Portsmouth (September 1905)
This agreement affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea and ceded the southern half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan. -
Algecrias Conference (1906)
Held in Algeciras, Spain to discuss France's relationship to the government of Morocco. The conference climaxed the First Moroccan Crisis. -
Outbreak of the First World War (July 1914)
World War I began after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. -
Opening of the Panama Canal (August 1914)
On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was opened to traffic. Panama later pushed to revoke the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, and in 1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos signed a treaty to turn over the canal to Panama by the end of the century. -
USA Enters the First World War (April 1917)
In early April 1917, with the toll in sunken U.S. merchant ships and civilian casualties rising, Wilson asked Congress for “a war to end all wars” that would “make the world safe for democracy.” -
US President Wilson's Fourteen Points Speech (January 1918)
In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918)
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. -
Treaty of Versailles (June 1919)
The Treaty of Versailles was signed by Germany and the Allied Nations on June 28, 1919, formally ending World War One. The terms of the treaty required that Germany pay financial reparations, disarm, lose territory, and give up all of its overseas colonies. -
Opening of the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles (January 1919)
Formally opened on January 18, 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was the international meeting that established the terms of peace after World War I.