Chiang Kai-Shek is a Chinese political leader best remembered for being China's national leader during the brutal Japan-China war that began in 1937. He led the Guomindang and Kuomintag armies before becoming China's national leader in 1928. Chiang Kai-Shek's leadership of China lasted 47 years until his death in 1975.

Born 31 October 1887 in Xikou, Zhejiang Province, China, Chiang Kai-Shek was raised in a home that was struggling financially, yet with his ancestral ties connected to Hequiao in Jiangsu Province, he was socially considered to have upper class ancestry. Chiang Kai-Shek's father, Chiang Zhaocong, died when Kai-Shek was just three years old. After a Japanese military education, Chiang Kai-Shek spent a few years in the Japanese Imperial Army. He was wed to Mao Fumei in an arranged marriage that produced a son and a daughter.

Chiang Kai-Shek proved his leadership potential successfully in the Guomindang army. He was so respected for his military abilities that he surpassed many other qualified candidates to be selected to replace Sun Yat-Sen as the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT) after Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925. Chiang Kai-Shek became the national leader of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1928. The Chinese Civil war had started in 1927, the year before Chiang Kai-Shek took Presidential office, and Chiang Kai-Shek wanted to eliminate the communists. He could not accomplish that goal and moved to Taiwan to continue his ROC presidency.

Much of Chiang Kai-Shek's leadership over China was ineffective because he couldn't control China enough to keep it secure from Japanese invaders. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and in 1937 the Japanese executed their attack which led to the Japan-China war. Chiang Kai-Shek's Guomintang army was not prepared to resist the Japanese and soon China lost its capital city, Nanjing/Nanking. Later referred to as "The Rape of Nanking" and "The Nanking Massacre," the Japanese army stormed Nanking and raped and killed large numbers of Chinese people in mass firing squads. The estimated amounts of victims vary, but many historians believe that about 300,000 or more Chinese people died during the Japanese raid on Nanking.

Despite the terrible results of the Japan-China war, Chiang Kai-Shek was credited with using strategy to get Western military support for China, even though this lengthened the war. By the time of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, China was an Allied Power along with Great Britain, Russia and the United States. After 47 years as the ROC's president, Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975 at the age of 87 due to kidney failure.