The Boxer Rebellion (or the Boxer Uprising), which involved a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, led to a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising in northern China. It was a fight against the spread of Western and Japanese influence in China towards the end of the Qing dynasty.

The China rebels were referred to by Westerners as "Boxers" because the rebels performed physical exercises that they believed would allow them to withstand bullets. In the end, the insurgents killed foreigners and Chinese Christians. They also destroyed as much foreign property as they could.

From June to August in 1901, the "Boxers" directly attacked the foreign district of Beijing (then called Peking), China’s capital, until an international force that included American troops subdued the uprising. By the terms of the Boxer Protocol (a protocol signed on September 7, 1901 between the Qing Empire of China and the Eight-Nation Alliance), which officially ended the rebellion in 1901, China agreed to pay more than $400 million in reparations.

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