About 1755 Toward reducing the risk of accidental blinding, metal masks
pierced by eyeholes appear in Parisian fencing salles. But ac-
cording to Richard Burton, “To put on a mask was to show the
adversary that you feared the result of his awkwardness; it was
a precaution that bordered on the offensive” (Burton 1911,
92–93). As a result, they did not become popular until a more
comfortable (and stylish) wire mesh design appeared during the
1780s.
1755 In his famous dictionary, Samuel Johnson defines the English
word box. As a noun it meant a blow on the head given with
the hand, while as a verb it meant to fight or strike with the
fist. A boxeris defined as “a man who fights with the fist.”
The word also appeared in Irish Gaelic, where it became bois-
cín,and referred to both fighting with the hands and sparring
with sticks.
1757 Gamblers and grifters living in Fujian and Gwangdong province
create the crime syndicates known to outsiders as Triads, after
the three dots that members used as gang signs, and to insiders
as the Dian Di Hui,or Heaven-and-Earth Societies. Members
were rarely orthodox (zheng) boxers. Instead, in the words of the
nineteenth-century Malay triad leader Ho Ah-kay, they were sim-
ply gangs in the employ of brothel owners and gamblers.
1758 The Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel revises Huigh de Groot’s
laws of war, calling the result The Law of Nations.Vattel
specifically excludes battles against American Indians, black
Africans, and Barbary corsairs from consideration because, in
Vattel’s words, right “goes hand in hand with necessity” (Fabell
1980, 202).
1764 To reduce expenses, the members of England’s Royal Company
of Archers begin shooting feather-filled glass balls instead of
the eyes of live geese buried up to their necks in dirt.
1766 Near Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, a few dozen mountain vil-
lagers recite incantations, dance wildly, and invoke the protec-
tion of a Tang-dynasty general they learned about by watching
stage plays. This makes them China’s first known Spirit Boxers
(shenquan).
About 1767 A Thai aristocrat named Nai Khanom Tom defeats a dozen
Burmese boxers to secure his release from a Burmese prisoner
of war camp. On the one hand, this speaks highly of Tom’s
skills, as Burmese boxers were generally both larger than Thai
boxers and more skilled in wrestling. On the other hand, it
may not be as surprising as it sounds, as the Burmese army re-
lied more on spears and firearms than boxing prowess for its
military successes, and its soldiers included more townsmen
than skilled pugilists.
1768 During a national sorcery scare, Chinese officials search some
sectarian temples and torture some beggars, and then declare the
problem solved. Removed from context and combined with sto-
ries about concurrent Fujianese lineage feuds, these events may
provide a root for the many subsequent stories describing how
the Chinese government forced Daoist (Taoist) fighting monks to
sack Shaolin Monasteries in Henan and Fujian province.814 Chronological History of the Martial Arts