Macartney Embassy
Qianlong turns down Britain's bid for wider trade
British envoy Lord Macartney was received by the Qianlong Emperor at his summer retreat, but all requests for wider trade and a permanent embassy were refused. The rebuff revealed the gulf between China and the West before the Opium Wars.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — 4 years earlier
- 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — 4 years earlier
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — 3 years later
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — 11 years later
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — 21 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — 25 years earlier
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — 21 years earlier
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — 10 years earlier
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — 19 years later
Africa
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — 5 years later
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — 11 years later
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — 12 years later
Americas
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — 17 years earlier
- 1787 US Constitution — 6 years earlier
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — 2 years earlier
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — 10 years later
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — 17 years later
Oceania
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — 25 years earlier
- 1788 First Fleet arrives in Australia — 5 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Catherine the Great (aged 64)
- George Washington (aged 61)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 44)
- Napoleon Bonaparte (aged 24)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (aged 23)
- Simón Bolívar (aged 10)
- Qianlong Emperor (aged 82)
- Immanuel Kant (aged 69)
- Alexander Suvorov (aged 63)
- James Watt (aged 57)