History of Beijing
1215 Battle of ZhongduBeijing, named Zhongdu at the time, was fighting a bitter war against Mongolia. Leader Genghis Khan of the Mongols lead the siege against northern china. The war began in 1211 and in 1215, Zhongdu surrendered to the Mongols. Many of the city's inhabitants starved during the fighting periods. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty when he recaptured Beijing. He renamed it Beiping.
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1860 World War IAt the end of the Qing Dynasty, World War I broke out. Beijing became the focus of invaders.It was invaded by 8 countries; England, America, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Austria. Families were robbed and their homes were burned down. After that, the whole country was reduced to the status of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
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1949 People's Republic of ChinaOn October 1 of 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China at the gates of Tiananmen square. The name of Beiping was restored to Beijing, and the city was again designated as the capital of China.
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2008 Beijing OlympicsChina became the 22nd nation to host the Olympic Games and the 18th to hold a Summer Olympic Games. There were 43 new world records and 132 Olympic records set at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing built the Bird's Nest stadium and the Water Cube to host the games. Beijing's major transportation infrastructures also went under major renovation to prepare for the event. The opening ceremony began at 8:00pm on August 8th, 2008. Since the number 8 symbolizes prosperity and luck in Chinese culture it was the perfect date and time to have it. The ceremony lasted four hours and with 15,000 performers, it cost nearly 100 million US dollars to produce.
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