In partnership with
Replace 16 supplements in one daily drink.
David Beckham. Giannis Antetokounmpo. Aryna Sabalenka. Inter Miami CF. The world's best choose IM8 because performance starts with what you do every day.
Daily Ultimate Essentials and Longevity deliver a complete, clinically formulated system for energy, digestion, sleep, focus and healthy aging. In a 12-week randomized controlled trial, 95% felt a boost in daily energy, 85% felt less bloated with better digestion, 80% reported better sleep and 75% reported sharper focus and mental clarity.
IM8 is NSF Certified for Sport, tested against 280+ banned substances and recommended by 300+ clinicians. With 50 million servings sold across 46 countries, discover the IM8 routine trusted at the highest levels of sport—and built for everyday life. See the clinical results.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR, MASTERS OF TRIVIA
Trivia is more than a game; it’s a global tradition of knowledge and competition. Masters of Trivia’s tournaments have gone live, with 30 fast, multiple-choice questions. Most correct wins. Speed breaks ties. Compete worldwide for a $MOT token prize purse, plus valuable in-kind prizes.
Get the entry link and reminders by email — subscribe free at PlayMOT.
—— ON THIS DAY ——
OCTOBER 10, 1911
Wuchang (now Wuhan), China
115 years ago
The Wuchang Uprising of October 10, 1911, the army mutiny that set off the revolution ending the Qing dynasty and more than two thousand years of imperial rule in China.
On October 9, 1911, a group of revolutionaries were assembling bombs in a house in the Russian concession of Hankou, one of the three cities that today make up Wuhan. One of the bombs went off by accident. Police who came to investigate found membership lists naming soldiers in the local garrison who belonged to secret anti-government societies. The men on those lists now faced a simple choice between arrest and execution or immediate revolt.
On the evening of October 10, soldiers of an engineering battalion in the neighboring city of Wuchang shot their officers, seized the arsenal, and attacked the governor's offices. The Qing viceroy fled through a hole cut in the wall of his compound. By morning the city was in rebel hands. Lacking any leader of stature, the mutineers pressed a reluctant brigade commander, Li Yuanhong, into service as head of their military government. By some accounts he had to be pulled out from a hiding place to accept.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution, the chain of provincial revolts that overthrew the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China.
The Qing dynasty, founded by Manchu conquerors in 1644, had been tottering for decades. It had lost wars to Britain, France, and Japan, ceded territory and trading rights to foreign powers, and paid a crushing indemnity after the Boxer Rebellion. Belated reforms had created modern army units and student circles that turned out to be breeding grounds for revolution. In 1911 a government plan to nationalize provincial railways and hand them to foreign bankers provoked furious protests. The spark in Wuchang landed on dry tinder. Within six weeks, fifteen provinces had declared their independence from the throne.
The best-known revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen, had nothing to do with the uprising. He had spent sixteen years in exile after a string of failed plots and was traveling in the United States raising money. He learned of the revolt from a newspaper over breakfast in Denver, Colorado. He reached Shanghai on Christmas Day, was elected provisional president by delegates in Nanjing, and proclaimed the Republic of China on January 1, 1912.
The republic lacked an army that could beat the imperial forces, which were commanded by the capable and ambitious general Yuan Shikai. A bargain was struck: Yuan would persuade the court to step down, and Sun would hand him the presidency. On February 12, 1912, the six-year-old emperor Puyi abdicated. Yuan soon dismantled the new parliament and tried to make himself emperor, and after his death in 1916 China fractured among rival warlords. Decades of civil war, invasion, and revolution followed. October 10, known as Double Ten, is still celebrated as the national day in Taiwan.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
The uprising ended the oldest continuous imperial system on Earth. China had been ruled by emperors since 221 BCE. The abdication of 1912 closed that chapter for good, and every Chinese government since has claimed the revolution as part of its heritage.
It showed how fragile an old regime can be. A botched bomb, a captured list, and a few hundred desperate soldiers were enough to topple a dynasty that had ruled for 268 years, because almost no one was willing to defend it.
The unfinished revolution shaped the century that followed. The republic's failure to build stable institutions opened the way to warlordism, the rise of the Nationalists and the Communists, and the civil war whose outcome still divides Beijing and Taipei.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On October 10, 1911, soldiers in Wuchang mutinied because a bomb had gone off a day early and their names were on a list. Four months later the last emperor of China, a child of six, gave up the throne. The man history remembers as the father of the republic was eating breakfast in Colorado when it started.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“The work of the revolution is not yet done.”
— Sun Yat-sen, from his political testament, 1925
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Wuchang Uprising, the fall of the Qing dynasty, Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai, and the founding of the Republic of China?
