Born Then1839–1842
Life during the First Opium War
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
Britain went to war when Qing officials destroyed British opium in Canton. China lost, ceded Hong Kong and opened five ports to trade. For most Chinese the direct effect was small; the long-term effects were opium imports and the drain of silver.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.
Around the same time
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- Spanish American wars of independence 1808–1826
- British emigration to the colonies and America 1815–1913
- First cholera pandemic 1817–1824
- Java War 1825–1830
- Cultivation System in Java 1830–1870
- Abolition of slavery in the British Empire 1834–1838
- Indian indenture system 1834–1917
- First Opium War 1839–1842
- German emigration to the Americas 1840–1893
- Great Famine in Ireland 1845–1852
- Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian 1845–1913
- Third cholera pandemic 1846–1860
- Mexican–American War 1846–1848
- Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864
- Victorian gold rush 1851–1869
- Irish emigration after the Famine 1852–1913
- Crimean War 1853–1856
- Third plague pandemic 1855–1930
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 1857–1858
- French conquest of Vietnam 1858–1887
- American Civil War 1861–1865