Sequencing Imperialism, 1840 to 1908

The idea

Put the unit on one line and the shape of the age appears. The Opium War opens it in eighteen forty and Hong Kong follows in forty-two. Perry enters Edo Bay in fifty-three. The Sepoy Rebellion comes in fifty-seven and the Raj replaces the Company. The Suez Canal opens in sixty-nine; the Meiji Restoration begins in sixty-eight. Britain buys the canal shares in seventy-five and occupies Egypt in eighty-two. The Berlin Conference sits in eighty-four and eighty-five. Adwa is ninety-six, Fashoda ninety-eight, the Boer War ninety-nine to nineteen oh-two, the Boxers nineteen hundred. The Herero rise in nineteen oh-four, Japan beats Russia in oh-five, and Belgium takes the Congo in oh-eight. The pattern: Asia first, by gunboat, in the forties and fifties; Africa in a rush after eighteen seventy-five; the resistance and the reckonings after eighteen ninety-five. Practice by placing each event in its decade before checking.