May Revolution
The May Revolution was a direct reaction to Spain's Peninsular War. In 1808, King Ferdinand VII of Spain abdicated in favor of Napoleon, who granted the throne to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. A Supreme Central Junta led resistance to Joseph's government and the French occupation of Spain, but eventually suffered a series of reversals that resulted in the Spanish loss of the northern half of the country. On February 1, 1810, French troops took Seville and gained control of most of Andalusia. The Supreme Junta retreated to Cadiz and dissolved itself, and the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies replaced it. News of these events arrived in Buenos Aires on May 18, brought by British ships.
May Fourth Movement
"The atmosphere and political mood that emerged around 1919," in the words of Mitter (2004), "are at the centre of a set of ideas that has shaped China's momentous twentieth century." Following the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, the Qing Dynasty disintegrated. This marked the end of thousands of years of powerful imperial rule, and theoretically ushered a new era in which political power rested with the people. However, the reality was that China was a fragmented nation dominated by warlords, who were more concerned with their own political powers and private armies than national interests. The Chinese Beiyang government was occupied with suppressing internal affairs and did little to counter the influence exerted by foreign powers. The March 1st Movement that happened in Korea in 1919, the Russian Revolution of 1917, defeats by foreign powers and the presence of spheres of influence inflamed a sense of Chinese nationalism among the emerging middle class and cultural leaders. Leaders of the New Culture Movement believed that traditional Confucian values were responsible for the political weakness of the nation. Chinese nationalists called for a rejection of traditional values and the selective adoption of Western ideals of "Mr. Science" () and "Mr. Democracy" () in place of "Mr. Confucius" in order to strengthen the new nation. These iconoclastic and anti-traditional views and programs have shaped China's politics and culture down until the present.