The cangue, a wooden collar used to publicly shame and restrain prisoners, was a common form of punishment in China during the late Qing dynasty and into the early 20th century. This practice served not only to immobilize those accused of crimes but also to…
These captivating photographs from the LIFE archives provide a unique window into mid-20th century China, during a period chronicled as “the last days of Shanghai”. The images were taken by photographer Jack Birns, who was sent to China to take pictures and…
During the 1870s, Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz (1839–1911) was the leading foreign photographer in Yokohama, a primary Japanese port for trade and tourism. The aristocrat Stillfried was born in Komotau, Austro-Hungary, and, like his father, embarked o…
In October 1949, the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong claimed victory and formed the People’s Republic of China. Socialist regimes now held power across one-fifth of the globe, ruling a combined population of almost 800 million people. Maint…
The 1950s were a period of huge change for Hong Kong. The end of Japanese occupation, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. and U.N. trade embargoes on China, and a mass influx of Mainland immigrants bringing low-cost labor to the city,…
In 1966 Mao Zedong, the Communist leader of China, started a political campaign that became known as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Mao called on China's youth to help him purge capitalist influences and bourgeois thinking in government, teaching,…
These photographs of Peking, now known as Beijing, taken by Thomas Child in the 1870s and 1880s are a window of the old China. In May of 1870, Thomas Child was hired by the Imperial Maritime Customs Service to be a gas engineer in Peking (Beijing). The …
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 culminating in the Tiananmen Square Massacre were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between April 15 and June 4, 1989. They were mainly led by Beijing st…
World War II brought momentous change to America's Chinese community. For decades, the Chinese were vilified in America, especially in California, the center of the U.S.'s anti-Chinese feelings. The Chinese had initially come to California for the Gold …
This photograph shows soldiers of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900, left-to-right: Britain, United States, Australia, British India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan. This was a British propaganda photo where the British requested the height…
Mao's last public appearance—and the last known photograph of him alive—was on May 27, 1976, when he met the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the latter's one-day visit to Beijing. Bhutto was a great admirer of Mao, emulating…
"Bloody Saturday" - Depicting a Chinese baby crying within the bombed-out ruins of Shanghai South Railway Station, the photograph became known as a cultural icon demonstrating Japanese wartime atrocities in China. Taken a few minutes after a Japanese ai…