(1931) Seizure of the Manchurian city of Mukden (now Shenyang, China).
Responding to Russian pressure from the north and to the increasingly successful unification of China by Chiang Kai-shek , the Japanese garrison in Manchuria used the pretext of an explosion along its railway to occupy Mukden. With reinforcements from the Japanese colony of Korea, its army had occupied all of Manchuria within three months. The Chinese withdrew and allowed the Japanese to establish the state of Manchuguo .