Road to WW2 · TURNING POINT · 1937

Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937)

On the Road to WW2 map as “Marco Polo Bridge”

7 Jul 1937 — A soldier disappears during a night skirmish at a bridge outside Peking. The fighting grows into a full-scale war that neither government ordered or planned, and neither can stop.

When: 7 Jul 1937
Type: Turning point
Chapter: Second Sino-Japanese War (chapter 6 of Road to WW2)
Atlas: The Road to War, 1931–1941
Also in: WW2 · Chinese Revolution

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Map showing Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), turning point in The Road to War, 1931–1941 — TURNING POINT · THE ROAD TO WAR, 1931–1941

These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v0.2.1 — dated political boundaries · US diplomatic records — Jehol occupation,March1933 · Natural Earth — physical reference geography · USMA: Japanese Occupation, 1940

Source details

Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. CC BY4.0 · Dated polity and constituent territory selections; campaign-dependent occupation overlays reconstructed separately.
US diplomatic records — Jehol occupation,March1933. Historical facts consulted; no source artwork or prose republished
Natural Earth. Public domain
United States Military Academy, Department of History, Digital History Center. Source-map facts used for independent geographic reconstruction; original chart artwork is not republished

The separately published Tibetan polity remains neutral. The authored modern-China interaction region does not make Tibet a Chinese battlefield or Allied-controlled territory.

Late October 1938 retains the 1938 Japanese outline and adds only the local Wuhan and Canton changes from the 1939 source. The future conquests of Hainan and Nanchang remain outside.

reconstruction: 1905–1942 · reconstruction: 1936–1937reference forpost1933Manchukuo · reconstruction: 1938 · reconstruction: 1938.8 · reconstruction: 1938–1938 · trace: 1933occupation;1940publishedprovince reference · vector: 1890–1978 · vector: 1890–2023 · vector: 1914–1938 · vector: 1915–1940 · vector: 1927–1939 · vector: 1932–1955 · vector: 1936–1941 · vector: 1938–1938

Layer records and reconstruction methods