History
The Envoys Who Would Not Kneel
At about five o’clock in the morning of 29 August 1816, a procession of exhausted Englishmen arrived at the gates of the Yuanmingyuan, the imperial summer palace northwest of Beijing.
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History
Napoleon Predicted China’s Rise From His Prison Island
On 27 June 1817, the East Indiaman Caesar dropped anchor off St Helena, a volcanic speck in the South Atlantic where the British government kept the most famous prisoner in the world.
History
Jewish Shanghai of Refugees and Tycoons
Between 1938 and 1941, as country after country closed its doors to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, a Chinese port city under Japanese military pressure became one of the last places in the world they could reach.
History
From Jurchen Tribes to Manchu Emperors
In November 1635, the ruler of a rising state in what is now north-east China issued an order about a name. His people had long been called Jušen, known in Chinese as Nüzhen and in English as Jurchen.
History
The Long Making of the Han People
According to China’s seventh national census, carried out in 2020, 1,286,311,334 people in mainland China identified as Han, or 91.11% of the population.
History
How the People’s Liberation Army Shaped China
Every year on 1 August, Chinese television carries footage of soldiers in dress uniform, newspapers print editorials about loyalty, and buildings across the country display the characters 八一, “eight-one”, the date of Army Day.
History
How Song-Dynasty Sichuan Invented Paper Money
In the early eleventh century, a merchant in Chengdu could carry a fortune in his sleeve, as long as the fortune was made of paper. Everywhere else in the world, money meant metal.
History
The Long History of the Yellow Peril
In the autumn of 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Tsar Nicholas II an unusual present. It was a picture drawn by the history painter Hermann Knackfuss from the Kaiser’s own sketch.
History
When Pope and Emperor Clashed Over Confucius
When Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇 (1552–1610) arrived in China in 1583, he did not come as a conqueror or a trader. He came as a mathematician.
History
Zheng He Ruled the Ocean Before Da Gama
On the eleventh of July 1405, at the anchorage of Liujiagang where the Yangtze meets the sea, the largest fleet the world had ever seen put out under sail.
History
The First Emperor Gave China Its Operating System
In March 1974, in a drought year, farmers digging a well outside the town of Lintong in Shaanxi province struck terracotta.
History
The Exam That Ruled China for 1,300 Years
Every year, in the second week of June, China holds its breath. Construction sites near schools fall silent. Traffic police close roads and ban horns.
