A republic of China is proclaimed, with Sun Yatsen as its provisional president

The abdication of the child emperor Puyi brings to an end the Qing dynasty

Tibet declares its independence after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of imperial China

Yuan Shikai outlaws the Guomindang party in the republic of China, to give himself unchallenged power as president

The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral makes her name with her first collection, Sonetos de la muerte

The German enclave of Qingdao, in China, falls to the Japanese after a two-month siege

A Chilean poet, Ricardo Reyes, adopts the pen name Pablo Neruda

Mao Zedong leads a delegation to the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai

20-year-old Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes one of his best-known collections, Twenty Love Poems

Communists seize power in Jiangxi province and establish the first soviet republic in China

Right-wing Chinese army officer Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) launches an anti-Communist coup in the Canton region

The fossilized tooth of a human, half a million years old and known now as Peking Man, is discovered at a site near Beijing

Beijing falls to Kuomintang forces, extending the rule of Jiang Jieshi's National Government into the north of China

A second anti-Communist coup enables Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to set up a National Government in Nanjing

The Japanese occupy the Chinese state of Manchuria

Japan renames the Chinese province of Manchuria, calling it Manchukuo – supposedly independent but in fact a puppet state

Pablo Neruda increases his international reputation with a collection of surrealist poems, Residencia en la tierra ('Residence on earth')

To escape the Kuomintang forces, the Chinese Communist army begins the Long March from Jiangxi province to Shaanxi

Mao Zedong wins control over the Chinese Communists during the Long March

The survivors of the Long March reach safety in Shaanxi province in northwest China

The Japanese use an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge, near Beijing, as the pretext for an attack on China

Japanese troops occupy Beijing – at the start of eight years of continuous war between China and Japan

The Japanese capture the Chinese capital, Nanjing, and massacre at least 300,000 inhabitants within a few weeks

Hong Kong surrenders to an invading Japanese force

Joseph Stilwell is appointed to head the US military mission to Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek)