Timeline:

1890-91: Baum’s racist editorials on Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee, Aberdeen, S. Dakota
1891: The Baum family moves to Chicago
1892: Baum joins the Theosophical Society
1892: Renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act (originally passed in 1882)
1892: Pearl Buck born in the U.S. and taken to China at age 3 months
1897: Qingdao ceded to Germany

1898: Spanish-American War results in Spain’s defeat and the American purchase
of the Spanish territories, including the Philippines.  Annexation of Hawaii.  Kaiser coins the term The Yellow Peril.  Empress Dowager Cixi ends the so-called Hundred Days Reform with a coup d’etat.  The Guangxu Emperor is placed under house arrest.  Boxer unrest increases.

1899: In February the Philippine-American war begins, lasting till 1913.  In June, three Denver, Colorado newspapers publish a story that the Chinese government is going to demolish the Great Wall of China.  In October, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is finished and copyrighted.

1900: In April, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is printed.  In May and June the Boxers kill hundreds of European citizens, including the German ambassador and thousands of Chinese Christians.  In July and August the European powers and Japan counter-attack, retaking Tianjin and then Beijing.

1901: The Western powers and Japan occupy Beijing; the emperor Guangxu and Empress Cixi flee to Xi’an.  The Boxer Uprising finally is suppressed.
1905: Anna May Wong born in Los Angeles
1931: The Good Earth novel
1932: Shanghai Express film starring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong
1934: Buck leaves China; the Communists’ Long March
1936: Anna May Wong visits China
1937: The Good Earth film, war breaks out between Japan and China, the Rape of Nanjing.
1939: The Wizard of Oz film
1942: Monkey, an influential abridged English translation of Journey to the West by Arthur Waley, is published.
1956: Buck’s historical biography Imperial Woman
1957: Chaguan (The Teahouse), a play by Lao Shê
1961: Anna May Wong dies
1963: Hollywood makes 55 Days at Peking, set during the Boxer Uprising
1973: Pearl S. Buck dies