Arrange these developments outside Europe, earliest first.

1. Spanish American wars of independence begin
2. The first Opium War opens Chinese treaty ports
3. The Taiping civil war begins
4. The rebellion in India ends East India Company rule
5. The Meiji Restoration begins Japan’s transformation
6. Japan defeats Russia in war

Compressed into one sequence the century looks less like European expansion and more like a worldwide crisis of old regimes. Four of the six are internal upheavals in large states; the European role is to raise the pressure, not usually to be the main actor.