When confronted with a one hour lecture covering a span of over 400 hundred years of Chinese history I felt an inescapable urge to find a timeline, a friendly visual aid if you will, to help put all of this information into perspective. Timelines are a most useful graphic aid for our students, be they vertical or horizontal. I have seen some attractive time charts describing the rise and fall of the world’s many civilizations and empires available in some book shops. I should have bought one. I decided to look for a timeline online. I found History Mole. It’s fairly simple to use and provides lots of little facts organized by year, location, and events. Key events are linked to connected sites for additional information. It may not provide highly academic in depth information, but it can serve as a good starting point. A drawback: if you set too many questions in one day it shuts down requesting that you register to get up to 30 questions per day for free. Again, it serves well as a good starting point and it is appropriate for young students. I realize that this is not a site specific to East Asia, but the Internet didn’t exist before 1800. I was, however, able to get a quick glimpse at some of the many occasions that Chinese culture has intersected with European contact. It is also an excellent resource for trivia.
for example: 1644 CE
The Manchu emperors of China ordered all subjects to shave the top of their heads and wear the rest of their hair in a braid. The men complied until 1911 but the women did not.
http://www.historymole.com/cgi-bin/main/results.pl?type=phrase&search=china&x=24&y=3
Here are some other timelines for your consideration:
For kids:
http://www.timeforkids.com/destination/china/history-timeline
Graphs and charts galore:
https://www.google.com/search?q=china+timeline&hl=en&tbo=u&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS511US512&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zpfSUMmXPOjoiwKE8YGQDQ&sqi=2&ved=0CEUQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=705
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