Dmitri Mendeleev presented his periodic table of the elements based on increasing atomic weight on March 6, 1869, in a presentation to the Russian Chemical Society. While Mendeleev's table was the first to gain some acceptance in the scientific community, it was not the first table of its kind.
In the end, the British sale of opium was used as means for  obtaining more land and trading rights from the Chinese, leading to  the devastation of the Chinese government and economy which is why  The First Opium War will be remembered in history as the time when  China was ultimately betrayed by the British.
In the early 19th century, an illegal drug trade in China emerged. The Chinese government retaliated by enforcing a ban on the import of opium that led to the First Opium War (1839â1842) between the United Kingdom and Qing dynasty China.