One of the cradles of civilization, China has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, with the earliest dynasties emerging in the Yellow River basin before the late second millenniumBCE. The eighth to third centuriesBCE saw a breakdown in the authority of the Zhou dynasty, accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature, philosophy, and historiography. In 221BCE, China was unified under an emperor for the first time. Appointed non-hereditary officials began ruling counties instead of the aristocracy, ushering in more than two millennia of imperial dynasties including the Qin, Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. With the invention of gunpowder and paper, the establishment of the Silk Road, and the building of the Great Wall, Chinese culture—including languages, traditions, architecture, philosophy and technology—flourished and has heavily influenced East Asia and beyond. However, China began to cede parts of the country in the late 19th century to various European powers by a series of unequal treaties.
Publicity photo of Anna May Wong from Stars of the Photoplay, 1930
Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio.
Born in Los Angeles to second-generation Taishanese Chinese American parents, Wong became engrossed with films and decided at the age of 11 that she would become an actress. Her first role was as an extra in the movie The Red Lantern (1919). During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first films made in color, and in Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom in 1924. Wong had been one of the first to embrace the flapper look. In 1934, the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York voted her the "world's best dressed woman." In the 1920s and 1930s, Wong was acclaimed as one of the top fashion icons. (Full article...)
In his Dream Pool Essays or Dream Torrent Essays (夢溪筆談; Mengxi Bitan) of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen discovered the concept of true north in terms of magnetic declination towards the north pole, with experimentation of suspended magnetic needles and "the improved meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the pole star and true north". This was the decisive step in human history to make compasses more useful for navigation, and may have been a concept unknown in Europe for another four hundred years (evidence of German sundials made circa 1450 show markings similar to Chinese geomancers' compasses in regard to declination). (Full article...)
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There are no contemporaneous portraits of Du Fu; this is a later artist's impression.
Du Fu (Chinese:杜甫; Wade–Giles:Tu Fu; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. Together with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai, Du is often considered one of the greatest Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but Du proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like all of China, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.
Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire". (Full article...)
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Nicole Cooke, gold medalist
The women's road race was one of the cycling events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. It took place on 10 August 2008, featuring 66 women from 33 countries. It was the seventh appearance of an Olympic women's road race event and featured a longer course than any of the previous six races. The race was run on the Urban Road Cycling Course (one of Beijing's nine temporary venues), which is 102.6 kilometres (63.8mi) total. Including a second lap around the 23.8km (14.8mi) final circuit, the total distance of the women's race was 126.4km (78.5mi), less than half the length of the men's race.
Heavy rain during most of the race made conditions difficult for the competitors. A group of five broke away during the final lap and worked together until the final sprint, where Nicole Cooke won the race. Cooke earned Great Britain's first medal at these Games and 200th Olympic gold medal overall. Emma Johansson of Sweden and Tatiana Guderzo of Italy, finishing second and third place with the same time as Cooke, received silver and bronze medals respectively. (Full article...)
The economy of the Han dynasty (206 BC– 220 AD) of ancient China experienced upward and downward movements in its economic cycle, periods of economic prosperity and decline. It is normally divided into three periods: Western Han (206 BC– 9 AD), the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD), and Eastern Han (25–220 AD). The Xin regime, established by the former regent Wang Mang, formed a brief interregnum between lengthy periods of Han rule. Following the fall of Wang Mang, the Han capital was moved eastward from Chang'an to Luoyang. In consequence, historians have named the succeeding eras Western Han and Eastern Han respectively.
The Han economy was defined by significant population growth, increasing urbanization, unprecedented growth of industry and trade, and government experimentation with nationalization. Another large component of the government is that it was run by influential families who had the most money. In this era, the levels of minting and circulation of coin currency grew significantly, forming the foundation of a stable monetary system. The Silk Road facilitated the establishment of trade and tributary exchanges with foreign countries across Eurasia, many of which were previously unknown to the people of ancient China. The imperial capitals of both Western Han (Chang'an) and Eastern Han (Luoyang) were among the largest cities in the world at the time, in both population and area. Here, government workshops manufactured furnishings for the palaces of the emperor and produced goods for the common people. The government oversaw the construction of roads and bridges, which facilitated official government business and encouraged commercial growth. Under Han rule, industrialists, wholesalers, and merchants—from minor shopkeepers to wealthy businessmen—could engage in a wide range of enterprises and trade in the domestic, public, and even military spheres. (Full article...)
Cai Lun (Chinese:蔡伦; courtesy name: Jingzhong (敬仲); c.50–62 – 121 CE), formerly romanized as Ts'ai Lun, was a Chinese eunuch court official of the Eastern Han dynasty. He occupies a pivotal place in the history of paper due to his addition of pulp via tree bark and hemp ends which resulted in the large-scale manufacture and worldwide spread of paper. Although traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper, earlier forms of paper have existed since the 3rd century BCE, so Cai's contributions are limited to innovation, rather than invention.
Born in Guiyang Commandery[zh] (in what is now Leiyang), Cai arrived at the imperial court in Luoyang by 75 CE, where he served as a chamberlain for Emperor Ming, and then as Xiao Huangmen, an imperial messenger for Emperor Zhang. To assist Lady Dou in securing her adopted son as designated heir, he interrogated Consort Song and her sister, who then killed themselves. When Emperor He ascended the throne in 88 CE, Dou awarded Cai with two positions: Zhongchang shi[zh], a political counselor to the emperor that was the highest position for eunuchs of the time, and also as Shangfang Ling, where Cai oversaw the production of instruments and weapons at the Palace Workshop. (Full article...)
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The field shortly after the start.
The men's road race, a part of the cycling events at the 2008 Summer Olympics, took place on August 9 at the Urban Road Cycling Course in Beijing. It started at 11:00China Standard Time (UTC+8), and was scheduled to last until 17:30 later that day. The 245.4-kilometre (152.5mi) course ran north across the heart of the Beijing metropolitan area, passing such landmarks as the Temple of Heaven, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square and the Beijing National Stadium. After rolling over relatively flat terrain for 78.8km (49.0mi) north of the Beijing city center, the route entered a decisive circuit encompassing seven loops on a 23.8km (14.8mi) section up and down the Badaling Pass, including ramps as steep as a 10percent gradient.
The race was won by the Spanish rider Samuel Sánchez in 6hours, 23minutes, 49seconds, after a six-man breakaway group contested a sprint finish. It was the first medal in the men's individual road race for Spain. Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, finishing second and third place with the same time as Sánchez, received silver and bronze medals respectively for the event. The hot and humid conditions were in sharp contrast to the heavy rain weathered in the women's road race the following day. (Full article...)
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A map of the Western Han dynasty in 2AD
Principalities and centrally-administered commanderies
The Han dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC–9AD, 25–220AD), established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206BC) and a warring interregnum known as the Chu–Han contention (206–202BC), and it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280AD). The dynasty was briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23AD) established by the usurping regent Wang Mang, and is thus separated into two periods—the Western Han (202BC–9AD) and the Eastern Han (25–220AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history, and had a permanent impact on Chinese identity in later periods. The majority ethnic group of modern China refer to themselves as the "Han people" or "Han Chinese". The spoken Sinitic language and written Chinese are referred to respectively as the "Han language" and "Han characters".
A Yuan-era stele in the ruins of the Cross Temple. Another stele (left) and some scattered groundwork (right) are visible in the background.
The Cross Temple (Chinese:十字寺; pinyin:Shízì sì) is a former place of worship in Fangshan, Beijing. Buddhists and early Chinese Christians used the temple during different periods. Originally built as a Buddhist temple, some scholars hypothesise that it saw Christian use during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The temple was used by Buddhists during the Liao dynasty (916–1125) and by Christians during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). It returned to Buddhist use during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), before being sold in 1911. It was first recorded in modern scholarship in 1919, damaged during the Cultural Revolution, and re-established as a national-level protected site in 2006. Some scholars consider it to be the only place of worship of the Church of the East (also known as Nestorian Christianity) discovered in China.
Today, the site features two ancient steles, as well as groundwork and the bases of several pillars. The steles date to the Liao and Yuan dynasties, but their inscriptions were tampered with during the Ming. During the early 20th century, two stone blocks carved with crosses and other patterns were also discovered at the site, with one of them also bearing an inscription in Syriac. The blocks are presently on display at the Nanjing Museum. (Full article...)
Hu lived in Nanjing during the transition from the Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty. A Ming loyalist, he was offered a position at the rump court of the Hongguang Emperor, but declined the post, and never held anything more than minor political office. He did, however, design the Hongguang Emperor's personal seal, and his loyalty to the dynasty was such that he largely retired from society after the emperor's capture and death in 1645. He owned and operated an academic publishing house called the Ten Bamboo Studio, in which he practised various multi-colour printing and embossing techniques, and he employed several members of his family in this enterprise. Hu's work at the Ten Bamboo Studio pioneered new techniques in colour printmaking, leading to delicate gradations of colour which were not previously achievable in this art form. (Full article...)
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Song dynasty river ship armed with a trebuchet catapult on its top deck, from the Wujing Zongyao
The Battle of Caishi (Chinese:采石之戰) was a major naval engagement of the Jin–Song Wars of China that took place on November 26–27, 1161. It ended with a decisive Song victory, aided by their use of gunpowder weapons.
The Li family founded the dynasty after taking advantage of a period of Sui decline and precipitating their final collapse, in turn inaugurating a period of progress and stability in the first half of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty was formally interrupted during 690–705 when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Wu Zhou dynasty and becoming the only legitimate Chinese empress regnant. The devastating An Lushan Rebellion (755–763) shook the nation and led to the decline of central authority in the dynasty's latter half. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang maintained a civil-service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. The rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century undermined this civil order. The dynasty and central government went into decline by the latter half of the 9th century; agrarian rebellions resulted in mass population loss and displacement, widespread poverty, and further government dysfunction that ultimately ended the dynasty in 907. (Full article...)
Pallas's leaf warbler is one of the smallest Palearcticwarblers, with a relatively large head and short tail. It has greenish upperparts and white underparts, a lemon-yellow rump, and yellow double wingbars, supercilia and central crown stripe. It is similar in appearance to several other Asian warblers, including some that were formerly considered to be its subspecies, although its distinctive vocalisations aid identification. (Full article...)
St. Michael's Cathedral (Chinese:圣弥爱尔大教堂; pinyin:Shèng Mí'ài'ěr Dàjiàotáng; German: Kathedrale St. Michael), also called the Zhejiang Road Catholic Church (Chinese:浙江路天主教堂), is a Catholic church in Qingdao (Tsingtao), Shandong Province, China and is the seat of the Bishop of the Diocese of Qingdao (Tsingtao). It is located in the oldest part of Qingdao, at 15 Zhejiang Road, on the east side of Zhongshan Road in Shinan District. Built by German missionaries, the cathedral stands at the top of a hill in the center of the old German-built part of the city. It is the largest example of Romanesque Revival architecture in the province, resembling a German cathedral of the 12th century.
St. Michael's Cathedral is the product of a strong German presence in Shandong Province in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the mid-19th century the European powers forcibly opened China to foreign trade. The Divine Word Missionaries built a church in the Jiaozhou Bay concession in Shandong in 1902, and in 1934 erected the cathedral, which remained nominally under their administration until 1964. In 1942 it came under the control of the Japanese Army, returning to Chinese control when the Japanese left Qingdao in 1945. In the early 1950s, all foreign missionaries, including the Bishop of Qingdao, were either imprisoned or expelled from China, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the cathedral was defaced and abandoned. In 1981, it was repaired by the government and reopened for services, and in 1992 it was listed as a Provincial Historic Building by the government of Shandong Province. (Full article...)
... that American horticulturalist Joseph Lancaster Budd traveled to England, France, Austria, Russia, and China in 1882 to discover fruit trees that could grow in Iowa?
... that Luo Wenzao became the first Catholic bishop from China in 1685, after initially declining the appointment in 1677?
... that wood type for printing was invented in China, first mass-produced in the United States, and later exported back to China for use by missionaries?
Sichuan cuisine or Sichuanese cuisine, alternatively romanized as Szechwan cuisine or Szechuan cuisine (Chinese:四川, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: [sɨ̂.ʈʂʰwán]ⓘ),As one of the four major Chinese cuisines, it is famous for its unique spicy taste and rich cooking skills. is a style of Chinese cuisine originating from Sichuan province and the neighboring Chongqing municipality. Chongqing was formerly a part of Sichuan until 1997; thus, there is a great deal of cultural overlap between the two administrative divisions. There are many regional, local variations of Sichuanese cuisine within Sichuan and Chongqing.
This is a good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.
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Yangwu(pictured left) with the Chinese gunboat Fuxing at anchor, the night before the Battle of Fuzhou.
Yangwu (Chinese:揚武; pinyin:Yangwu; Wade–Giles:Yang-wu or Yang Woo) was a wooden corvette built for the Imperial Chinese Navy. She was built in 1872 at the Foochow Arsenal, and was the largest ship built there from the shipbuilding programme of 1868–75. During her early career, she was used as a training ship and under the command of English captains. She later saw action in the Battle of Fuzhou in 1884, the opening action of the Sino-French War, where she acted as the flagship of the Fujian Fleet. Shortly after the start of the battle, she was damaged by a spar torpedo, causing a large explosion and the loss of the majority of her crew; she was sunk shortly afterwards by enemy fire. (Full article...)
The book received both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode, while elements of Chang's analysis of the motivations for the events, Japanese culture, and her calculation of the total numbers killed and raped were criticized as inaccurate because of her lack of training as a historian. Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin, both of whom played important roles in the Nanking Safety Zone, a designated area in Nanjing that protected Chinese civilians during the Nanjing Massacre. (Full article...)
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Artist's reconstruction of Archaeamphora longicervia after Li (2005)
The species was originally described as a pitcher plant with close affinities to extant members of the familySarraceniaceae. This would make it the earliest known carnivorous plant and the only known fossil record of Sarraceniaceae, or the New World pitcher plant family. Archaeamphora is also one of the three oldest known genera of angiosperms (flowering plants). Li (2005) wrote that "the existence of a so highly derived Angiosperm in the Early Cretaceous suggests that Angiosperms should have originated much earlier, maybe back to 280 mya as the molecular clock studies suggested". (Full article...)
Lhasa is a prefecture-level city, one of the main administrative divisions of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It covers an area of 29,274 square kilometres (11,303sqmi) of rugged and sparsely populated terrain. Its urban center is Lhasa, with around 300,000 residents, which mostly corresponds with the administrative Chengguan District, while its suburbs extend into Doilungdêqên District and Dagzê District. The consolidated prefecture-level city contains additional five, mostly rural, counties.
The city boundaries roughly correspond to the basin of the Lhasa River, a major tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. It lies on the Lhasa terrane, the last unit of crust to accrete to the Eurasian plate before the continent of India collided with Asia about 50 million years ago and pushed up the Himalayas. The terrain is high, contains a complex pattern of faults and is tectonically active. The temperature is generally warm in summer and rises above freezing on sunny days in winter. Most of the rain falls in summer. The upland areas and northern grasslands are used for grazing yaks, sheep and goats, while the river valleys support agriculture with crops such as barley, wheat and vegetables. Wildlife is not abundant, but includes the rare snow leopard and black-necked crane. Mining has caused some environmental problems. (Full article...)
Feng represented Singapore for the first time in the Olympic Games at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. On 15 August 2008, the Singapore team comprising Feng and her teammates Li Jiawei and Wang Yuegu defeated South Korea 3–2 in the semifinals. The team lost to China in the final, obtaining the silver medal. This was Singapore's first Olympic medal in 48 years and its first as an independent nation. (Full article...)
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Chinese First Phase Offensive, 25 October– 1 November 1950
The Battle of Pakchon (5 November 1950), also known as the Battle of Bochuan (Chinese:博川战斗; pinyin:Bó Chuān Zhàn Dòu), took place ten days after the start of the Chinese First Phase Offensive, following the entry of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) into the Korean War. The offensive reversed the United Nations Command (UN) advance towards the Yalu River which had occurred after their intervention in the wake of the North Korean invasion of South Korea at the start of the war. The battle was fought between British and Australian forces from the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade with American armour and artillery in support, and the PVA 117th Division of the 39th Army, around the village of Pakchon on the Taeryong River. After capturing Chongju on 30 October the British and Australians had been ordered to pull back to Pakchon in an attempt to consolidate the western flank of the US Eighth Army. Meanwhile, immediately following their success at Unsan against the Americans, the PVA 117th Division had attacked southward, intending to cut off the UN forces as they withdrew in the face of the unexpected PVA assault. To halt the PVA advance, the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade was ordered to defend the lower crossings of the Taeryong and Chongchon rivers as part of a rearguard, in conjunction with the US 24th Infantry Division further upstream on the right.
During the night of 4/5 November, the PVA and Korean People's Army (KPA) mounted a full-scale assault on the US 24th Infantry Division, pushing back an American infantry regiment nearly 2 kilometres (1.2mi). The PVA/KPA force subsequently turned west, advancing between the Taeryong and Chongchon rivers and threatening the rear of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade by cutting the Pakchon–Sinanju road. The following day they attacked an American artillery battery which was guarding a vital concrete bridge near Kujin. The British and Australians then successfully counter-attacked the PVA forces occupying a number of nearby ridgelines during the day but were in turn counter-attacked before being pushed off the high ground during the night. In their first battle with the PVA, the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) captured a well defended hill with only limited offensive support, and held it in the face of heavy counter-attacks before confused command decisions resulted in a disorganised night withdrawal while still in contact. The withdrawal threatened to open the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade's left flank and the Australians were ordered to immediately reposition on the ridge, yet ultimately it was too late to regain the feature in darkness. However, following heavy fighting the pressure on the Australians unexpectedly ceased after midnight, and parties of PVA were observed beginning to withdraw. By early morning the PVA attack had been checked and 3 RAR had redeployed to new positions in the paddy fields around the railway crossing north of Maenjung-dong. (Full article...)
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Liu Geping (Chinese:刘格平; 8 August 1904–11March 1992) was a Chinese communist revolutionary and politician of Hui Muslim heritage. He is best known as the founding Chairman of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and later for seizing power in Shanxi during the Cultural Revolution, where he made himself the top leader of the province.
Liu spent his early days as a communist agitator, leading peasant uprisings and building the party organization in rural areas. A political survivor, he was arrested several times during the Warlord Era and served two prison terms. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he held important roles in the party and government but was branded a traitor in 1960. He later returned to work, only to be purged again several years later during the Cultural Revolution. He was rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution and spent the rest of his life in ceremonial positions. (Full article...)
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Clockwise from top-left: Chiang inspecting soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army; NRA troops marching north; an NRA artillery unit in combat; civilians showing support for the NRA; peasants volunteering to join the expedition; NRA soldiers preparing to launch an attack.
The second phase of the Expedition began in January 1928, when Chiang resumed command. By April 1928, the nationalist forces had advanced to the Yellow River. With the assistance of allied warlords, including Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, nationalist forces secured a series of decisive victories against the Beiyang Army. As they approached Beijing, Zhang Zuolin, leader of the Manchuria-based Fengtian clique, was forced to flee, and was assassinated shortly thereafter by the Japanese. His son, Zhang Xueliang, took over as the leader of the Fengtian clique, and in December 1928, announced that Manchuria would accept the authority of the nationalist government in Nanjing. With the final piece of China under KMT control, the Northern Expedition concluded successfully and China was reunified, heralding the start of the Nanjing decade. (Full article...)
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Filial piety has been an important aspect of Buddhist ethics since early Buddhism, and was essential in the apologetics and texts of Chinese Buddhism. In the Early Buddhist Texts such as the Nikāyas and Āgamas, filial piety is prescribed and practiced in three ways: to repay the gratitude toward one's parents; as a good karma or merit; and as a way to contribute to and sustain the social order. In Buddhist scriptures, narratives are given of the Buddha and his disciples practicing filial piety toward their parents, based on the qualities of gratitude and reciprocity. Initially, scholars of Buddhism like Kenneth Ch'en saw Buddhist teachings on filial piety as a distinct feature of Chinese Buddhism. Later scholarship, led by people such as John Strong and Gregory Schopen, has come to believe that filial piety was part of Buddhist doctrine since early times. Strong and Schopen have provided epigraphical and textual evidence to show that early Buddhist laypeople, monks and nuns often displayed strong devotion to their parents, concluding that filial piety was already an important part of the devotional life of early Buddhists.
When Buddhism was introduced in China, it had no organized celibacy. Confucianism emphasized filial piety to parents and loyalty to the emperor, and Buddhist monastic life was seen to go against its tenets. In the 3rd–5th century, as criticism of Buddhism increased, Buddhist monastics and lay authors responded by writing about and translating Buddhist doctrines and narratives that supported filiality, comparing them to Confucianism and thereby defending Buddhism and its value in society. The Mouzi Lihuolun referred to Confucian and Daoist classics, as well as historical precedents to respond to critics of Buddhism. The Mouzi stated that while on the surface the Buddhist monk seems to reject and abandon his parents, he is actually aiding his parents as well as himself on the path towards enlightenment. Sun Chuo (c.300–380) further argued that monks were working to ensure the salvation of all people and making their family proud by doing so, and Liu Xie stated that Buddhists practiced filial piety by sharing merit with their departed relatives. Buddhist monks were also criticized for not expressing their respect to the Chinese emperor by prostrating and other devotion, which in Confucianism was associated with the virtue of filial piety. Huiyuan (334–416) responded that although monks did not express such piety, they did pay homage in heart and mind; moreover, their teaching of morality and virtue to the public helped support imperial rule. (Full article...)
Lantian Man (simplified Chinese:蓝田人; traditional Chinese:藍田人; pinyin:Lántián rén), Homo erectus lantianensis) is a subspecies of Homo erectus known from an almost complete mandible from Chenchiawo (陈家窝) Village discovered in 1963, and a partial skull from Gongwangling (公王岭) Village discovered in 1964, situated in Lantian County on the Loess Plateau. The former dates to about 710–684 thousand years ago, and the latter 1.65–1.59 million years ago. This makes Lantian Man the second-oldest firmly dated H. erectus beyond Africa (after H. e. georgicus), and the oldest in East Asia. The fossils were first described by Woo Ju-Kan in 1964, who considered the subspecies an ancestor to Peking Man (H. e. pekinensis).
Like Peking Man, Lantian Man has a heavy brow ridge, a receding forehead, possibly a sagittal keel running across the midline of the skull, and exorbitantly thickened bone. The skull is small by absolute measure, and has narrower postorbital constriction. The teeth are proportionally large compared to other Asian H. erectus. The brain volume of the Gongwangling skull is about 780 cc, similar to contemporary archaic humans in Africa, but much smaller than later Asian H. erectus and modern humans. (Full article...)
Developed by Western missionaries working among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia in the 19th century and refined by missionaries working in Xiamen and Tainan, it uses a modified Latin alphabet and some diacritics to represent the spoken language. After initial success in Fujian, POJ became most widespread in Taiwan and, in the mid-20th century, there were over 100,000 people literate in POJ. A large amount of printed material, religious and secular, has been produced in the script, including Taiwan's first newspaper, the Taiwan Church News. (Full article...)
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The Chinese cruiser Jingyuan in August 1887 while in the Solent near Portsmouth
Both ships were assigned to the Beiyang Fleet. Jingyuan was part of a flotilla which toured ports during the summer of 1889. Jingyuan first saw action during the First Sino-Japanese War. At the Battle of the Yalu River on 17 September 1894, she was one of the surviving Chinese cruisers, although suffered fire damage. She was sunk the following February during the Battle of Weihaiwei from a shot fired from a captured Chinese fort. She sank upright in shallow water, and Admiral Ding Ruchang gave orders for her to be destroyed by a naval mine. She was raised the following year for scrap. (Full article...)
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The total death toll of the Nanjing Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Imperial Army marched from Shanghai to the Chinese capital city of Nanjing (Nanking), and though a large number of Chinese POWs and civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese following their entrance into Nanjing on December 13, 1937, the precise number remains unknown. Since the late-1960s when the first academic works on the Nanjing Massacre were produced, estimating the approximate death toll of the massacre has been a major topic of scholarly debate.
Currently, the most reliable and widely agreed upon figures place the massacre victims within Nanjing City Walls to be around 40,000, mostly massacred in the first five days from December 13, 1937; while the total victims massacred as of the end of March 1938 in both Nanjing and its surrounding six rural counties far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000. Hence, depending on the timeframe and the geographic scope, an empirically verifiable, scholarly valid victimization range is from over 40,000 to under 200,000. (Full article...)
Released in cinemas on 9 February 2002, I Not Stupid earned over S$3.8million, becoming the second-highest grossing Singaporean film. Its satirical take on the Singaporean education system and social attitudes in Singapore sparked public discussions and parliamentary debates that led to reforms in the education system. A standalone second installment titled I Not Stupid Too, was released on the 26 January 2006. Another standalone third installment titled I Not Stupid 3, is scheduled to be released on the 6 June 2024. (Full article...)
Zhu was born into poverty in 1886 in Sichuan. He was adopted by a wealthy uncle at age nine and received a superior early education that led to his admission into a military academy. After graduating, he joined a rebel army and became a warlord. Afterward he joined the CCP. He commanded the Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. By the end of the civil war he was also a high-ranking party official. (Full article...)
Image 12Photo showing serving chopsticks (gongkuai) on the far right, personal chopsticks (putongkuai) in the middle, and a spoon. Serving chopsticks are usually more ornate than the personal ones. (from Chinese culture)
Image 19Red lanterns are hung from the trees during the Chinese New Year celebrations in Ditan Park (Temple of Earth) in Beijing. (from Chinese culture)
Image 22Gilin with the head and scaly body of a dragon, tail of a lion and cloven hoofs like a deer. Its body enveloped in sacred flames. Detail from Entrance of General Zu Dashou Tomb (Ming Tomb). (from Chinese culture)
Image 23Official map of the Qing Empire published in 1905 (from History of China)
Image 34Relief of a fenghuang in Fuxi Temple (Tianshui). They are mythological birds of East Asia that reign over all other birds. (from Chinese culture)
Amnesty International says that the number of executions recorded globally in 2023 was the highest since 2015 and up more than 30% from 2022, with Iran carrying out 74% of the global total. The figures exclude China, because execution numbers are considered a state secret. (BBC News)
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged(e.g. {{WikiProject China}})or categorizedcorrectly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.
The President of the Republic of China is the head of state of the Republic of China (ROC).
The Constitution names the president as head of state and commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Armed Forces (formerly known as the National Revolutionary Army). The president is responsible for conducting foreign relations, such as concluding treaties, declaring war, and making peace. The president must promulgate all laws and has no right to veto. Other powers of the president include granting amnesty, pardon or clemency, declaring martial law, and conferring honors and decorations.
The current President is Tsai Ing-wen(pictured), since May 20, 2016. The first woman to be elected to the office, Tsai is the seventh president of the Republic of China under the 1947 Constitution and the second president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).