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Bowring Treaty
The Bowring Treaty was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam on 18 April 1855. The treaty had the primary effect of liberalising foreign trade in Siam, and was signed by five Siamese plenipotentiaries (amongst them Wongsa Dhiraj Snid, one of the King's half-brothers) and Sir John Bowring, the British envoy and colonial governor of Hong Kong. Background The Burney Treaty had been signed between the Kingdom of Siam and the British Empire in 1826, coming about as a result of the two powers having a mutual opposition to the Ava Kingdom. That treaty had failed to settle commercial issues, leading to the arrival of Sir John Bowring to Siam in order to negotiate a new one. The treaty negotiated by him allowed free trade by foreign merchants in Bangkok, as all foreign trade had previously been subject to heavy taxation by the Siamese Crown. The treaty also allowed the establishment of a British consulate in Bangkok and guaranteed its full extraterrit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated population of 10 million people as of 2024, 13% of the country's population. Over 17.4 million people (25% of Thailand's population) live within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region as of the 2021 estimate, making Bangkok a megacity and an extreme primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in both size and importance to the national economy. Bangkok traces its roots to a small trading post during the Ayutthaya Kingdom, Ayutthaya era in the 15th century, which eventually grew and became the site of two capital cities, Thonburi Kingdom, Thonburi in 1767 and Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782–1932), Rattanakosin in 1782. Bangkok was at the heart of the modernization of Siam during the late 19th century, as the count ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opium
Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. Opium's main psychoactive alkaloids, primarily morphine, act on μ-opioid receptors, causing analgesia and addiction with long-term use leading to tolerance, dependence, and increased cancer risk. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The English word for opium is loan word, borrowed fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Museum Of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 million visitors in 2023, it was the List of most-visited museums in the United States, third most-visited museum in the United States. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an overall area of with of exhibition and public space and houses over 1,000 employees. The museum's collections contain over 146 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rock (geology), rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, the largest natural history collection in the world. It is also home to about 185 professional natural history scientists—the largest grou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokugawa Shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the ''shōgun,'' and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo), Edo (Tokyo) along with the ''daimyō'' lords of the ''samurai'' class. The Tokugawa shogunate organized Japanese society under the strict Edo society, Tokugawa class system and banned most foreigners under the isolationist policies of ''Sakoku'' to promote political stability. The Tokugawa shoguns governed Japan in a feudal system, with each ''daimyō'' administering a ''Han system, han'' (feudal domain), although the country was still nominally organized as provinces of Japan, imperial provinces. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan experienced rapid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Townsend Harris
Townsend Harris (October 4, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the Harris Treaty between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened Shogunate Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period. In New York Harris was born in the village of Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), in Washington County in upstate New York. He moved early to New York City, where he became a successful merchant and importer from China. In 1846, Harris joined the New York City Board of Education, serving as its president until 1848. He was an avid and critical reader and also taught himself French, Italian and Spanish. He founded the Free Academy of the City of New York, which later became the City College of New York, to provide education to the city's working people. A city high school bearing Harris's name, Townsend Harris High School, soon emerged as a separate ent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Brooke
James Brooke (29 April 1803 – 11 June 1868), was a British soldier and adventurer who founded the Raj of Sarawak in Borneo. He ruled as the first White Rajahs, White Rajah of Sarawak from 1841 until his death in 1868. Brooke was born and raised in Company rule in India, India during the rule of the British East India Company. After a few years of education in England, he served in the Bengal Army, was wounded, and resigned his commission. He then bought a ship and sailed to the Malay Archipelago where, in gratitude for helping to crush a rebellion, he was rewarded with the position of governor of Sarawak. He then vigorously suppressed piracy in the region and, in the ensuing turmoil, restored the Sultan of Brunei to his throne, for which the Sultan made Brooke the Rajah of Sarawak. He ruled until his death. Brooke was not without detractors and was criticised in the British Parliament and officially investigated in Singapore in the Straits Settlements, Singapore for his anti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raj Of Sarawak
The Raj of Sarawak, Kingdom of Sarawak or State of Sarawak, was a kingdom founded in 1841 in northwestern Borneo and was in a Protectorate, treaty of protection with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom from 1888. It was formed from a series of land concession (territory), concessions acquired by the Englishman James Brooke from the Sultan of Brunei. Sarawak was diplomatic recognition, recognised as a sovereign state by the United States in 1850, and by the United Kingdom in 1864. Since the Malaysia Agreement, formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963, The Raj has been a constitutent States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia as the state of Sarawak. Following recognition, Brooke expanded the Raj's territory at the expense of Brunei. Several major rebellions occurred against his rule, causing him to be plagued by debt incurred in countering the rebellions, and the sluggish economic situation at the time. His nephew, Charles Brooke, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Rajahs
The White Rajahs of Sarawak were a hereditary monarchy of the Brooke family, who founded and ruled the Raj of Sarawak as a sovereign state, located on the northwest coast of the island of Borneo in Maritime Southeast Asia, from 1841 to 1946. Of British people, British origin, the first ruler, James Brooke was granted the province of Kuching – which was known as Sarawak Asal (Original Sarawak) – by the Sultanate of Brunei for helping fight piracy and insurgency among the indigenous peoples in 1841 and received independent kingdom status. Based on Patrilineality, descent through the male line in accordance with the will of James Brooke, the White Rajahs' dynasty continued through Brooke's Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, nephew and Charles Vyner Brooke, grandnephew, the latter of whom ceded his rights over Sarawak to the United Kingdom in 1946, which was made a Crown Colony of Sarawak, Crown colony. His nephew had been the legal heir to the throne and objected to the cession, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or ''Arrow'' War, was fought between the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major conflict in the Opium Wars, which were fought over the right to import opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing and the forced legalisation of the opium trade. It caused many Chinese officials to believe that conflicts with the Western powers were no longer traditional wars, but part of a looming national crisis. On 8 October 1856, Qing officials seized the ''Arrow'', a British-registered cargo ship, and arrested its Chinese sailors. The British consul, Harry Parkes, protested, upon which the viceroy of Liangguang, Ye Mingchen, delivered most of the sailors to the British on 22 October, but refused to release the rest. The next day, British gunboats shelled the city of Canton. The British government decided to seek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Opium War
The First Opium War ( zh, t=第一次鴉片戰爭, p=Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at Guangzhou (then named ''Canton'') and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the Royal Navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western World
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident () in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (). Definitions of the "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives; the West is an evolving concept made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Greco-Roman world, Ancient Greece and Rome, while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine the Great, Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
