The burning of the Yuanmingyuan was one of the crimes of aggression committed by the British and French Allied Forces during the Second Opium War.

In the 10th year of the Xianfeng era (1860 A.D.), the British and French allied forces occupied the Yuanmingyuan after capturing Beijing.On October 18, 1860, British commander James Bruce ordered the Yuanmingyuan to go up in flames. Over the next two days, soldiers were assigned to set fire to various palaces, pagodas and other buildings. Particularly costly was the library and archives of the Qing Empire, where some 10,500 volumes of books and archives, including the rarest and most exquisite works on Chinese history, science and technology, philosophy and the arts, went up in flames in the Elgin fire ......