The history of the island of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples. People from China gradually came into contact with Taiwan by the time of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and Han Chinese people started settling there by the early 17th century. The island became known by the West when Portuguese explorers discovered in 16th century and named it Formosa. Between 1624 and 1662, the south of the island was colonized by the Dutch headquartered in Zeelandia in present-day Anping, Tainan whilst the Spanish built an outpost in the north, which lasted until 1642 when the Spanish fortress in Keelung was seized by the Dutch. These European settlements were followed by an influx of Hoklo and Hakka immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong.
The February 28 incident 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.
Pingtung County is a county located in southern Taiwan. It has a warm tropical monsoon climate and is known for its agriculture and tourism. Kenting National Park, Taiwan's oldest national park, is located in the county. The county seat is Pingtung City.
Witte Corneliszoon de With was a Dutch States Navy officer who served during the Eighty Years' War and the First Anglo-Dutch War.
Fort Santo Domingo is a historical fortress in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was originally a wooden fort built in 1628 by the Manila-based Spanish East Indies of the Spanish Empire, who named it in Spanish: el Fuerte de Santo Domingo, lit. 'the Fort of Saint Dominic'. However, after refurbishing it in stone, the initial fort was repeatedly ordered to be dismantled and withdrawn from around 1637 by Spanish Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera for economic downsizing and retrenchment, which their rival Dutch East India Company (VOC) of the Dutch Empire soon found out and later invaded in 1641 and won by the Second Battle of San Salvador in 1642. After the battle, the Dutch rebuilt a fort in the original site in 1644 and renamed it in Dutch: Fort Antonio, after Antonio van Diemen, the then Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Since the Dutch were called in Taiwanese Hokkien Chinese: 紅毛; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Âng-mn̂g; lit. 'Red-haired (people)') by the Han Chinese immigrants during the time, the fort was then nicknamed in Taiwanese Hokkien Chinese: 紅毛城; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Âng-mn̂g-siâⁿ; lit. 'Red-hair fort'.
The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as Formosa, was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence on Formosa to trade with the Ming Empire in neighbouring China and Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and to interdict Portuguese and Spanish trade and colonial activities in East Asia.
Liuqiu, also known by several other names, is a coral island in the Taiwan Strait about 13 kilometers (8 mi) southwest of the main island of Taiwan. It has an area of 6.8 km2 (2.6 sq mi) and approximately 12,200 residents, the vast majority of whom share only 10 surnames. It is administered as a township of Pingtung County in Taiwan Province, Republic of China. As of 2019 the township chief is Chen Lung-chin.
Pieter Nuyts or Nuijts was a Dutch explorer, diplomat and politician.
The Japanese invasion of Taiwan, also known as Yiwei War in Chinese, was a conflict between the Empire of Japan and the armed forces of the short-lived Republic of Formosa following the Qing dynasty's cession of Taiwan to Japan in April 1895 at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese sought to take control of their new possession, while the Republican forces fought to resist Japanese occupation. The Japanese landed near Keelung on the northern coast of Taiwan on 29 May 1895, and in a five-month campaign swept southwards to Tainan. Although their advance was slowed by guerrilla activity, the Japanese defeated the Formosan forces whenever they attempted to make a stand. The Japanese victory at Baguashan on 27 August, the largest battle ever fought on Taiwanese soil, doomed the Formosan resistance to an early defeat. The fall of Tainan on 21 October ended organised resistance to Japanese occupation, and inaugurated five decades of Japanese rule in Taiwan.
The Qing dynasty ruled over the island of Taiwan from 1683 to 1895. The Qing dynasty sent an army led by general Shi Lang and defeated the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in 1683. Taiwan was then formally annexed in April 1684.
The Gouden Leeuw was a Dutch ship of the line armed with 80-82 cannon. The ship was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Gouden Leeuw was for a time the largest Dutch warship. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the ship served as the flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Cornelis Tromp. She was Tromp's flagship at the Battle of Texel in 1673, with the Irishman Thomas Tobiasz as his flag captain. She was broken up in 1686.
The Battle of Liaoluo Bay took place in 1633 off the coast of Fujian, China; involving the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Chinese Ming dynasty's navies. The battle was fought at the crescent-shaped Liaoluo Bay that forms the southern coast of the island of Kinmen. A Dutch fleet under Admiral Hans Putmans was attempting to control shipping in the Taiwan Strait, while the southern Fujian sea traffic and trade was protected by a fleet under Brigadier General Zheng Zhilong. This was the largest naval encounter between Chinese and European forces before the Opium Wars two hundred years later.
Robert Junius, also recorded as Robertus Junius was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary to Taiwan from 1629 to 1643. Along with Antonius Hambroek and Joannes Cruyf, he was among the longest-serving missionaries of the Dutch colonial era in Formosa.
Spanish Formosa was a small colony of the Spanish Empire established in the northern tip of the island now known as Taiwan, then known to Europeans at the time as Formosa or to Spaniards as "Isla Hermosa" from 1626 to 1642. It was ceded to the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years' War.
A series of military actions and diplomatic moves were undertaken in 1635 and 1636 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Dutch-era Taiwan (Formosa) aimed at subduing hostile aboriginal villages in the southwestern region of the island. Prior to the campaign the Dutch had been in Formosa for eleven years, but did not control much of the island beyond their principal fortress at Tayouan, and an alliance with the town of Sinkan. The other aboriginal villages in the area conducted numerous attacks on the Dutch and their allies, with the chief belligerents being the village of Mattau, who in 1629 ambushed and slaughtered a group of sixty Dutch soldiers.
The Mudan incident of 1871 was the massacre of 54 Ryukyuan sailors in Qing-era Taiwan who wandered into the central part of Taiwan after their ship shipwrecked off of Taiwan's southeastern coast. Twelve survivors were rescued by local Han people and were later returned to Miyako Island in the Ryukyu Islands.
Black Dwarf Cave is a cave and tourist attraction in Tianfu Village on Liuqiu Island, off Pingtung County, Taiwan. Its scenic area includes paths around the surrounding coasts and its ticket includes access to some other nearby attractions such as Mountain Pig Ditch and Beauty Cave.
Vase Rock is a rock just off Liuqiu Island of Pingtung County, Taiwan.
The earliest confirmed descriptions of visits by Han Chinese people to Taiwan occurred during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and Chinese objects such as pottery were found there, suggesting trade between Taiwanese indigenous peoples and the Han Chinese in prior periods. Trade between Han and Taiwanese indigenous peoples increased during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Pirates and fishermen also started visiting Taiwan. By the early 17th century, there were 1,500–2,000 Han people inhabiting one or two villages in southwestern Taiwan. Most of them were engaged in seasonal fishing and left afterwards but some stayed and planted crops.
The military history of Taiwan spans at least 400 years and is the history of battles and armed actions that took place in Taiwan and its surrounding islands. The island was the base of Chinese pirates who came into conflict with the Ming dynasty during the 16th century. From 1624 to 1662, Taiwan was the base of Dutch and Spanish colonies. The era of European colonization ended when a Ming general named Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a result of the Ming-Qing War and ousted the Dutch in 1661. The Dutch held out in northern Taiwan until 1668 when they left due to indigenous resistance. Koxinga's dynasty ruled southwestern Taiwan as the Kingdom of Tungning and attacked the Qing dynasty during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1673–1681).
