228 Incident
1947 CE.
Shown on the map at 23.770°, 121.000°.
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 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.
Text from the Wikipedia article February 28 incident, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.