On this Day in Chinese History; 26 January

This day, 26 January, in 1841, the British sent troops to forcibly occupy Hong Kong. This followed the British consul Charles Elliot’s leading of a fleet to invade Tianjin and submit “Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston’s Letter to Minister of the Emperor of China” to the Qing government, proposing to cede one or several islands on China’s southeast coast to the United Kingdom.