On This Day
1689 – The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing Empire (Julian calendar).
The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between Russia and China under the Qing dynasty. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Range and kept the area between the Argun River and Lake Baikal. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Range lasted until the Amur Acquisition in 1858 and 1860. It opened markets for Russian goods in China, and gave Russians access to Chinese supplies and luxuries.
The agreement was signed in Nerchinsk on August 27, 1689.[1] The signatories were Songgotu on behalf of the Kangxi Emperor and Fyodor Golovin on behalf of the Russian tsars Peter I and Ivan V.
The authoritative version was in Latin, with translations into Russian and Manchu, but these versions differed considerably. There was no official Chinese text for another two centuries,[2] but the border markers were inscribed in Chinese along with Manchu, Russian and Latin.[3]
Later, in 1727, the Treaty of Kiakhta fixed what is now the border of Mongolia west of the Argun and opened up the caravan trade. In 1858 (Treaty of Aigun) Russia annexed the land north of the Amur and in 1860 (Treaty of Beijing) took the coast down to Vladivostok. The current border runs along the Argun, Amur and Ussuri Rivers.
Born On This Day
1875 – Katharine McCormick, American biologist, philanthropist, and activist (d. 1967)
Katharine Dexter McCormick (August 27, 1875 – December 28, 1967) was a U.S. suffragist, philanthropist and, after her husband’s death, heir to a substantial part of the McCormick family fortune. She funded most of the research necessary to develop the first birth control pill.
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