April 8: the day compilation of the Kangxi Dictionary began

The book incorporated expanded versions of the Ming-dynasty «Character Collection» (字汇) by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) and "Correct Character Forms" (正字通) by Zhang Zilie (张自烈). The "Dictionary" contained 47,035 characters, each with a reading and explanation based on ancient sources. It was divided into 12 books, each comprising three parts. Characters were grouped under 214 radicals and classified as phonograms or ideograms. Explanations included excerpts from canonical, historical and didactic sources, as well as biographies of poets and noble men of the Han, Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties. At the end of the «Dictionary» was a "Supplement" with information on rare and ancient characters.

Work on the «Dictionary» was completed in 1716, but it contained many errors: according to the Qing scholar Wang Yinzhi (王引之), at least 2,588 entries required correction.

The «Kangxi Dictionary» is the first—that is, the oldest surviving—dictionary of Chinese characters to be corrected and maintained at state level.