Sun Zhongshan

Also known as Ming Wen · Zi Zaizhi · Hao Yixian

Sun Zhongshan, personal name Wen, courtesy name Zaizhi, styled Yixian (Sun Yat-sen), was born in Cuiheng village, Xiangshan county, Guangdong; Zhongshan comes from an alias he used in Japan. Educated in Honolulu and Hong Kong, he graduated from the Hong Kong College of Medicine in 1892. In 1894 he founded the Revive China Society in Honolulu; after a failed rising in Guangzhou he went into exile, and in 1896 he was detained in the Qing legation in London. In 1905 he formed the Tongmenghui in Tokyo and, in its journal Minbao, set out the three principles of nationalism, democracy and the people's livelihood. After the Wuchang uprising he took office in Nanjing on 1 January 1912 as provisional president of the Republic of China, soon yielding the post to Yuan Shikai. He later headed a constitution-protection government in Guangzhou and in 1924 reorganized the Nationalist Party and founded the Whampoa Military Academy. He died in Beijing on 12 March 1925 and was buried on Purple Mountain, Nanjing, in 1929.