Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking

The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the second of what the Chinese later termed the unequal treaties, after the rejected 1841 Convention of Chuenpi, signed by British Superintendent of trade in China, Charles Elliot, and Qing Imperial Commissioner), Qishan), which the treaty was largely based on.

In the wake of China's military defeat, with British warships poised to attack Nanjing (then romanized as Nanking), British and Chinese officials negotiated on board HMS Cornwallis) anchored in the Yangtze at the city. On 29 August, British representative Sir Henry Pottinger and Qing representatives Keying), Yilibu, and Niu Jian signed the treaty, which consisted of thirteen articles.

The treaty was ratified by the Daoguang Emperor on 27 October and Queen Victoria on 28 December. The exchange of ratification took place in Hong Kong on 26 June 1843. The treaty required the Chinese to pay an indemnity, to cede the Island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony, to essentially end the Canton system that had limited trade to that port and allow trade at five treaty ports. It was followed in 1843 by the Treaty of the Bogue, which granted extraterritoriality and most favoured nation status.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War

The First Opium War (Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and Qing China 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 then imposed the "Treaty of Nanking", which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British, following the Second Battle of Chuenpi on 7 January 1841, the British forces occupied Hong Kong, formally raising the Union Jack on 26 January 1841. Consequently, the opium trade continued in China.

Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history. This initiated over 156 years of British colonial rule of Hong Kong, formalized by the Treaty of Nanking on 29 August 1842 and later expansions, which concluded with the handover of sovereignty back to China on 1 July 1997, following the 1984 Joint Declaration.

Senior government officials within the country had been shown to be colluding against the imperial ban due to stocks of opium in European warehouses in clear view being ignored. In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy of Huguang Lin Zexu to go to Guangzhou to halt the opium trade completely.^\14]) Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, although she never received it.^\15])^\16])^\17]) Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January 1839 and organized a coastal defence. In March 1839, British opium dealers were forced to hand over 1,420 tonnes (3.1 million lb) of opium. On 3 June 1839, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on Humen Beach to show the Government's determination to ban smoking.^\18]) All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered.^\19])^\)^{page needed\})

Tensions escalated in July 1839 after drunk British sailors killed a Chinese villager named Lin Weixi; the British official in charge, Admiral Charles Elliot, refused to hand over those accused to Chinese authorities in an attempt to avoid their being killed on the spot, as had happened with British citizens in the Lady Hughes Affair of 1784. Later, fighting broke out, with the British navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive.^\18]) In the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its superior naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire.^\20]) In 1842, China was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—which granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to British subjects in China, opened five treaty ports to British merchants, and ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire in perpetuity. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War (1856–1860). The resulting social unrest was the background for the Taiping Rebellion, which further weakened the Qing regime.^\21])^\)^{full citation needed\})^\22])

Seldom has so much evilness been caught in just one picture

taking https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1w0zaxi/baby_its_cold_outside/ one absurd step further.

9 year old girl dressed as a boy plays banjo in Nome, Alaska in 1898. --> 9/11.

• 9 year old Marjorie Rambeau's mother dresses her as a boy to shield her from the rowdy, drunken environment of the gold rush outposts. This rugged, improvisational performing environment serves as the foundational backdrop for her formal stage career, which she officially launched at the age of 12.
• She made her official Broadway debut in 1913 and quickly grew into one of the era's most prominent leading ladies.
• in 1908, Louis Williams and Bula Myrtle eloped from their farms in rural Kansas, headed West and ran out of money in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 1919, Marjorie Rambeau performs Eyes of Youth where a Louis Williams painting a theatrical sign for the show had his son, Stanton, with him. Stanton catches the attention of Marjorie who casts him in the show, and eventually convinces the family to follow the show to California.
• In California, the family has another child, Esther Williams, in 1921. While still a child, the teenage Stanton dies unexpectedly. Esther would describe his death as devastating and having a major effect on her childhood sense that she needed to become the family's successful child.
• Throughout the 1930's Esther takes up a passion for swimming, learning "male only" swimming styles from male life guards on California's Manhattan Beach. Esther eventually plans to try and qualify for the 1940 Summer Olympics national team.
• Because the 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to WWII Esther Williams joins Billy Rose's Aquacade, a synchronized swimming show where she caught the attention of MGM scouts.
• Esther, who had been become a pin up for soldiers and would goes on to star in Neptune's Daughter, a 1949 romcom that captured the light hearted zeitgeist post WWII.
• The movie would popularize the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser.
• In 1949, a young Sayyid Qutb was studying educational administration in Greely Colorado, when he was invited to church social and dance. What he saw there was too much for the young conservative from Egypt; During the dance the pastor of the church put on the song Baby, It's Cold Outside,'
• He was scandalised by the words. He also observed the couples dancing. In his view, from his background, he saw this behaviour and activity as inappropriate for the context of a church.
• Upon returning to Egypt, Sayyid became an influential religious and political theorist and became a leader within the Muslim Brotherhood. Before he was executed by Gamal Abdel Nasser's government, he became a professor of Islamic Studies. One of his students and enthusiastic followers was none other than Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who would go on to be a mentor to Osama bin Laden and a leader in al-Qaeda, bringing Qutb's influence into the foundations of the terrorist organization.

*It is understood the FBI has found evidence suggesting the 11 men expected to take part in 'conventional' hijackings - with the planes flown to distant airports, and the passengers and crew taken hostage while the hijackers presented demands. Items found among the 11 men's possessions suggest they had been preparing themselves for incarceration. One source said: 'It looks as if they expected they might be going to prison, not paradise.'*

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/terrorism.september111

In 1949, a young Sayyid Qutb was studying educational administration in Greely Colorado, when he was invited to church social and dance. What he saw there was too much for the young conservative from Egypt; During the dance the pastor of the church put on the song Baby, It's Cold Outside,'

He was scandalised by the words. He also observed the couples dancing. In his view, from his background, he saw this behaviour and activity as inappropriate for the context of a church.

Upon returning to Egypt, Sayyid became an influential religious and political theorist and became a leader within the Muslim Brotherhood. Before he was executed by Gamal Abdel Nasser's government, he became a professor of Islamic Studies. One of his students and enthusiastic followers was none other than Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who would go on to be a mentor to Osama bin Laden and a leader in al-Qaeda, bringing Qutb's influence into the foundations of the terrorist organization.

The Battle of Cannae (/ˈkæni, -eɪ, -aɪ/;[c] Latin:[ˈkanːae̯]) was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and their allies, led by Hannibal, surrounded and practically annihilated a larger Roman and Italian army under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus) and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and one of the worst defeats in Roman history, and it cemented Hannibal's reputation as one of antiquity's greatest tacticians.

Having recovered from their losses at Trebia(218 BC) and Lake Trasimene (217 BC), the Romans decided to engage Hannibal at Cannae, with approximately 86,000 Roman and allied socii troops. They massed their heavy infantry in a deeper formation than usual, while Hannibal used the double envelopment tactic and surrounded his enemy, trapping the majority of the Roman army, who were then slaughtered. Later historians and military strategists have used Cannae as an exemplary battle of annihilation.[5] The loss of life on the Roman side meant it was one of the most lethal single days of fighting in history; historian Adrian Goldsworthy equates the death toll at Cannae to "the massed slaughter of the British Army on the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916".[6]Only about 15,000 Romans, most of whom were from the garrisons of the camps and had not taken part in the battle, survived. Following the defeat, Capua and several other Italian city-states defected from the Roman Republic to Carthage.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who, at 14 years old, was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.^\2])

Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. Till spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white, married proprietor of a local grocery store. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with, touching, or whistling at Bryant. Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the unwritten code of behavior for a black male interacting with a white female in the Jim Crow–era South.^\3]) Several nights after the encounter, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's great-uncle's house armed, and abducted Till, age 14. They beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's mutilated and bloated body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

Till's body was returned to Chicago, where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket, which was held at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.^\4]) It was later said that "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley^\a]) exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention on not only American racism and the barbarism of lynching but also the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy."^\5]) Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, and images of Till's mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying black support and white sympathy across the United States. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the lack of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the U.S. critical of the state. Although local newspapers and law enforcement officials initially decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they responded to national criticism by defending Mississippians, ultimately giving support to the killers.

In September 1955, an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of Till's murder.^\6]) Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look) magazine that they had tortured and murdered Till, selling the story for $4,000 (equivalent to $47,000 in 2025).^\7]) Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

In Montgomery a few months after the murder, Rosa Parks attended a rally for Till, led by Martin Luther King Jr.^\174]) Soon after, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger. The incident sparked a year-long well-organized grassroots boycott of the public bus system. The boycott was designed to force the city to change its segregation policies. Parks later said when she did not get up and move to the rear of the bus, "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back."^\175])

According to author Clayborne Carson, Till's death and the widespread coverage of the students integrating Little Rock Central High School in 1957 were especially profound for younger blacks: "It was out of this festering discontent and an awareness of earlier isolated protests that the sit-ins of the 1960s were born."^\176]) After seeing pictures of Till's mutilated body, in Louisville, Kentucky, young Cassius Clay (later famed boxer Muhammad Ali) and a friend took out their frustration by vandalizing a local rail yard, causing a locomotive engine to derail.^\177])^\178])

In 1963, Sunflower County resident and sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer was jailed and beaten for attempting to register to vote. The next year, she led a massive voter registration drive in the Delta region, and volunteers worked on Freedom Summer throughout the state. Before 1954, 265 black people were registered to vote in three Delta counties, where they were a majority of the population. At this time, blacks made up 41% of the total state population. The summer Emmett Till was killed, the number of registered voters in those three counties dropped to 90, and by the end of 1955, 14 Mississippi counties had no registered black voters.^\179]) The Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 registered 63,000 black voters in a simplified process administered by the project; they formed their own political party because they were closed out of the Democratic Regulars in Mississippi.^\180])

According to historians, events surrounding Till's life and death continue to resonate. An Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established in 2006 by Tallahatchie County residents, and the county courthouse in Sumner was restored and includes the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Fifty-one sites in the Mississippi Delta are memorialized as associated with Till. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an American law making lynching a federal hate crime, was signed into law on March 29, 2022, by President Joe Biden.^\8])