The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted Great Britain, France, and the United States against the Qing dynasty of China.
Palikao's bridge, on the evening of The Battle of Palikao, by Émile Bayard
The Illustrated London News print of the clipper steamship Ly-ee-moon, built for the opium trade, c. 1859
The execution of the Paris Foreign Missions Society missionary Auguste Chapdelaine was the official cause of the French involvement in the Second Opium War.
The capture of Ye Mingchen after the fall of Canton
The Second French Empire was an Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third French Republics. The period was one of significant achievements in infrastructure and economy, while France reasserted itself as the dominant power in Europe.
The official declaration of the Second Empire, at the Union Cycliste Internationale on 2 December 1852
The Avenue de l'Opéra, one of the new boulevards created by Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann
The French landing near Yevpatoria, Crimea, then part of the Russian Empire, 1854
Arrival of Marshal Randon in Algiers, French Algeria, 1857