Britain takes Mandalay and deposes King Thibaw, ending the Konbaung dynasty and annexing all of Burma to British India.
After a failed attack on the French at Huế, Emperor Hàm Nghi flees the capital and issues an edict calling for resistance to French rule.
The treaty places Tonkin and Annam under French protectorate.
European powers met in Berlin to set rules for colonial claims in Africa, accelerating the "Scramble for Africa" without any African representation.
Karl Marx dies in London, where he had lived in exile and written Das Kapital.
The cataclysmic eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait triggers tsunamis killing over 36,000 people; the explosion is heard thousands of kilometres away.
France creates the Indochinese Union of Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia; Laos is added in 1893.