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Events on Monday 1 January 1912 2
1912 – 1988Kim Philby (1912-1988)Died 11 May 1988, aged 76Kim Philby was a British intelligence officer who spied for the Soviet Union for decades as part of the Cambridge Five spy ring. He defected to the Soviet Union in 1963 after his cover was compromised. He died in Moscow, where he had lived in exile.
1912Republic of China proclaimedSun Yat-sen ends 2,000 years of imperial ruleOn 1 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of China, ending 2,133 years of imperial rule. The last Qing emperor, six-year-old Puyi, abdicated on 12 February 1912. The republic was almost immediately undermined by warlordism and the struggle between the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), eventually leading to civil war.