History of colonialism colonies had acquired independence during the Latin American revolutions at the beginning of the 19th century. In Asia, The Great Game, which lasted from 1813 to 1907, opposed the British Empire against Imperial Russia for supremacy in central Asia. China was opened to Western influence starting with the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–1842; 1856–1860). After the visits of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1852–1854, Japan opened itself to the Western world during the Meiji Era (1868–1912). Imperialism also took place in Burma, Indonesia (Netherlands East Indies), Malaya and the Philippines. Burma had been under British rule for nearly a hundred
Life of Joseph Smith from 1839 to 1844 Mississippi in Hancock County. He renamed the area "Nauvoo", which he said meant "beautiful" in Hebrew. The soggy low land and river eddies were exceptional breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and the Saints suffered plagues of malaria in the summers of 1839, 1840, and 1841. (In 1841 malaria killed Joseph's brother Don Carlos and his namesake, Joseph's son Don Carlos, within a few days of one another.) Late in 1839, Smith went to Washington to seek redress from the federal government for the Saints' losses in Missouri. He met briefly with President Martin Van Buren, but neither man seems to have