1901: Leaders Of The Boxer Uprising In China Beheaded.

Boxer Uprising (1898-1900) is a period of anti-foreign movement in China, culminating in a desperate uprising against Westerners and western influence. By the end of the 19th century, the Western powers and Japan has established wide interests in China. The Ch'ing regime, already weakened by European encroachments, was more enfeebled by Japan's success in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the subsequent further partitioning of China inti foreign spheres of influence. The Ch'ing emperor, Kuang-Hsu, attempted to meet the imperialist threat by adopting modern educational and administrative reforms, but he stirred conservative opposition and was frustrated (1898) bt the dowager empress, Tz'u Hsi,who, favouring a last effort to expel foreign influence, supported armed resistance.
The empress tacility encouraged an anti-foreign secret society called I Ho Ch'uan (In Mandarin means - Righteous, Harmonious Fists) or, in English, the Boxers. The Boxers soon grew powerful, and late in 1899 the movement began to assume menacing proportions. Violent attacks on foreigners and on Chinese Christians occurred.By June 1900, the Boxers occupied Beijing and for eight weeks besieged the foreigners and Chinese Christians there. Provincial governors in south-east China suppressed the court's declaration of war and assured the powers of protection for foreign interests, thus limiting the area of conflict to north China, The siege was lifted in August 1900 by an international force of British, French, Russian, American, German and Japanese troops, which had fought its way through from Tianjin. The Boxer Uprising thus ended when the Boxer leaders, Chi-Hsui and Hsu Cheng-Yu, were beheaded on 26 February 1901.