July 1:

1997 : Hong Kong returned to China

At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong reverts back to Chinese rule in
a ceremony attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince
Charles of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and U.S. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright. A few thousand Hong Kongers protested the
turnover, which was otherwise celebratory and peaceful.

In 1839, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference
in the country's economic, social, and political affairs. One of
Britain's first acts of the war was to occupy Hong Kong, a sparsely
inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. In 1841, China
ceded the island to the British with the signing of the Convention of
Chuenpi, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, formally ending
the First Opium War.

Britain's new colony flourished as an East-West trading center and as
the commercial gateway and distribution center for southern China. In
1898, Britain was granted an additional 99 years of rule over Hong
Kong under the Second Convention of Peking. In September 1984, after
years of negotiations, the British and the Chinese signed a formal
agreement approving the 1997 turnover of the island in exchange for a
Chinese pledge to preserve Hong Kong's capitalist system. On July 1,
1997, Hong Kong was peaceably handed over to China in a ceremony
attended by numerous Chinese, British, and international dignitaries.
The chief executive under the new Hong Kong government, Tung Chee Hwa,
formulated a policy based on the concept of "one country, two
systems," thus preserving Hong Kong's role as a principal capitalist
center in Asia.

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1867 : Canadian Independence Day
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1898 : The Battle of San Juan Hill
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1916 : Battle of the Somme begins
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