On February 28, 1947, crowds gathered at the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau's Taipei branch to protest. Its inventories were piled up and burned.
The February 28 incident (also called the February 28 massacre, the 228 incident, or the 228 massacre) was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan in 1947 that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC). Directed by provincial governor Chen Yi and president Chiang Kai-shek, thousands of civilians were killed beginning on February 28. The incident is considered to be one of the most important events in Taiwan's modern history and was a critical impetus for the Taiwan independence movement.
In 1945, following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, the Allies handed administrative control of Taiwan over to China, thus ending 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. Local residents became resentful of what they saw as high-handed and frequently corrupt conduct on the part of the Kuomintang (KMT) authorities, including the arbitrary seizure of private property, economic mismanagement, and exclusion from political participation. The flashpoint came on February 27, 1947, in Taipei, when agents of the State Monopoly Bureau struck a Taiwanese widow suspected of selling contraband cigarettes. An officer then fired into a crowd of angry bystanders, hitting one man, who died the next day. Soldiers fired upon demonstrators the next day, after which a radio station was seized by protesters and news of the revolt was broadcast to the entire island. As the uprising spread, the KMT-installed governor Chen Yi called for military reinforcements, and the uprising was violently put down by the National Revolutionary Army. Two years later, and for 38 years thereafter, the island would be placed under martial law in a period known as the "White Terror." (Full article...)
Tsai Wan-lin (Chinese: 蔡萬霖; pinyin: Caì Wànlín; 10 November 1924 – 27 September 2004) was a Taiwanese businessman who, at the peak of his wealth in 1996, was considered to be the fifth richest person in the world, with a family net worth of US$12.2 billion. At the time of his death in 2004, he was the richest man in Taiwan with a fortune of US$4.6 billion (NT$156.3 billion), ranked 94th worldwide. He founded the Lin Yuan Group, a large banking and insurance group.
Born in Japanese-era Taiwan, Chai earned his master's and doctorate degrees in the United States. He was a pro-democracy advocate and founded the Association for a Plebiscite (Chinese: 公民投票促進會; pinyin: Gōngmín Tóupiaò Cùjìnhùi) and Formosa Television. (Full article...)
Image 61901 map with red line marking approximate boundary separating territory under actual Japanese administration from "Savage District" (from History of Taiwan)
Image 19Taiwan in the 17th century, showing Dutch (magenta) and Spanish (green) possessions, and the Kingdom of Middag (orange) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 27Map of Asia showing the "Chinese Empire" (1892) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 28Depiction of a Chinese man, woman, and soldier, by Georg Franz Müller (1646–1723) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 29Map of Taiwan with the western coast pointed downwards, c. 1640 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 30Two 7-Eleven stores opposite each other on a crossroad. Taiwan has the highest density of 7-Eleven stores per person in the world (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 38Original geographic distributions of Taiwanese aboriginal peoples (from History of Taiwan)
Image 39The Qing Empire in 1820, with provinces in yellow, military governorates and protectorates in light yellow, tributary states in orange. (from History of Taiwan)
Image 43Mid-17th century portrait of Koxinga (Guoxingye or "Kok seng ia" in southern Fujianese), "Lord of the Imperial Surname" (from History of Taiwan)
Image 44Administrative units of Taiwan under the Qing dynasty by 1894 (from History of Taiwan)
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