On this day in 1552, Italian Jesuit missionary to China Mateo Ricci was born. He spent the last 30 years of his life in China.
On this day in 1913, Yuan Shih-kai forced the Congress to elect him president of the Republic of China.
On this day in 1999, Taiwan's most notorious criminal Chen Chin-hsing was executed. He had kidnapped and killed the 17-year-old daughter of television celebrity Pai Ping-ping in April 1997. He was also found guilty of killing three other people and raping more than a dozen women in Taipei.